Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

by Chryssalid-Lathis

A botched mission sends the cast of Lathis' "Teen Titans and the Lost Boy" across a dimensional boundary and into a parallel world; on that world, the XCOM Earth, the cast of "The Road to Cydonia" suddenly have more than just the Alien War on their hands.

36. And with Strange Aeons 1

A/N

Okay. Sorry guys, but this is a long author note.
Also, yes, we're kind of late with the upload (this being Friday night). Lathis and I have ended up in the situation where there's a potentially minor issue with the chapter and one or both of us don't have normal internet access. It can be tough keeping to the "every Friday, weekly" schedule, believe you me!

Moving on:

First of all, let me point out (since I don't think we've mentioned it here on FFN)

Reflections Lost has a tvtropes page!

I'd like to embed a link in the chapter, but FFN filters out links, so you'll just have to google it or go to tv tropes and check there.

Second: I'd like to address some things brought up in the tvtropes page, mostly regarding characterization. A lot of the problem I have, I think, stems from the fact that not everyone who reads Reflections Lost has read "The Road to Cydonia" and thus may not grasp the background of the characters from that story or what they've dealt with and been through, and what their motivations are. Lathis and I have always tried to write Reflections Lost so that a reader of just one of the core stories can dive right into the crossover with a minimum of confusion. It was why we made those introduction chapters, and it was why we did all those "Brother Eye" and "CLEANSLATE" files.

Nonetheless, I think quite a few things have slipped through the woodwork, and ended up interpreted in strange ways. Normally, that wouldn't be a concern - everyone interprets things differently - but a few weeks ago, another reviewer copy/pasted bits of the tvtropes article to point out how Reflections Lost was fundamentally flawed. I suppose to dissuade us from continuing it.

Anyway, I've taken this author note to break down the issues in question:

Re: Konatsu being a closet psychopath who dreams of dismembering people

(and him not using paralysis poison)

From chapter 9

"That was the name of his sword, or rather, his sword technique. There was a special groove, like the empty fang of its pit viper namesake, to serve as a reservoir. At least with humans, he could use it to kill cleanly and without suffering. One of his many failings, as his step sisters so often enjoyed pointing out, was that he really wasn't that good at being a shinobi. He didn't like to - didn't want to - hurt anyone. It was an unfortunate twist of fate that he was particularly good at doing something he didn't really enjoy. There were no reliable poisons when dealing with the alien enemy, but even there, if he could, he killed softy and painlessly. It was the least he could do."

TRTC and Reflections both mention that Konatsu's preference in poison is numbing/paralysis, just like the namesake of his sword. This is mentioned as far back as "Not Yet" and the duel he had with Ukyou, yet oddly the tvtropes article claims the exact opposite. The whole point of Juliet's mission to Roanapur was to minimize casualties. ... And they did just that.

On Konatsu specifically, he even took time to make sure that the people he knocked out didn't suffer head trauma when they hit the ground.

Chapter 10

"Habu wanted to be released. Konatsu very nearly reached for the hidden blade, even as Boris fell back, unable to let out the strangled gasp that ended with his broken ribs. He would be unconscious before his head hit the ground. Ripping his hand away from the temptations of his murderous blade, Konatsu blurred around, quickly catching the Russian man and easing him to the ground. He had gotten... sloppy. The broken bones were one thing, but he could have suffered brain damage by hitting the ground at that angle."

Despite the high and excitement of battle, the training and the ability to fight without restraint, Konatsu is clearly and constantly doing just that. The point is that he's a "genius ninja" with a gift for all sorts of ninja arts, all except the killer instinct, which is constantly fights down. At least until this recent arc... where you can see the space hulk dimension is wearing him down very badly.

Re: X-COM Ranma (and Ryouga) being "perfectly willing to kill outmatched opponents even if not necessary."

Chapter 9
"Roanapur was a lawless city and far from the first world climes that she had gotten used to operating in. They had basically no one on the ground to help them if push came to shove... Which wouldn't really have been an issue if they were there to take out a target or two, but the Lieutenant didn't want that. They were to get in and out with the briefcase and the two infiltrators."

A few sentences later, Ranma reminds them that they're not going to screw up, and that they'll measure success in the mission by NOT killing anyone. To which everyone in Juliet cheers (except Konatsu who just smiled meekly).

In fact, the ONLY casualties caused were when Lagoon and the Russians wiped out the Colombian mooks who ambushed them, and when the human-form alien used a mental lance to kill two Hotel Moscow soldiers. And of course the unfortunate Sirius cultist who was used to incubate the Chryssalid larva.

In Chapter 1, Ryouga also puts himself (and Mousse, who quips "I don't want to get killed so you can indulge another hardcase psychic") in personal danger to wait for Kagome to confront her mother ("this isn't our fight") so the situation can be resolved relatively peaceably. Mousse even jokes that he's being a "softie."

The only "outmatched humans" killed by India and Juliet have been heavily armed Sirius operatives. On the Procyon (Operation Winter Triangle), they were ordered to clear the ship, and spent weeks mentally and physically preparing themselves for that fact. They carried out their mission. As has been said a few times, the war against the aliens isn't being conducted as a set of duels.

It isn't "fair" to saturate an enemy position with Blaster Bombs or to snipe them from four hundred yards away. It isn't "fair" to shoot down a large scout UFO that can't fight back against a Firestorm or Avenger. It isn't 'fair' to mind control an alien and use it to shoot it's comrades.. If you're fighting "fair" then you're doing it wrong. That's XCOM's philosophy, and after Sirius wiped out the Amazon village, decimated the Phoenix Tribe, and constantly plans to abduct friends and family of XCOM operatives in a captain of terror... no, India and Juliet lost a lot of their hesitation towards dealing with them. Of course, you could argue that many - maybe most - Sirius operatives don't even know about the horrible masterminds controlling them. That's the flipside, and I admit it. I wrote it after all.

But outside of a direct Sirius-fighting op (in which case they have their orders, to boot) both India and Juliet, Ranma and Ryouga, go out of their way to handle people delicately and to not kill. This is pretty clear to anyone who has read TRTC, and should be clear to anyone who has read Reflections, too.

Re: Kasumi willingly participates in torture

Really. Re-read the scenes in chapter 15. First, Kasumi is a nurse and lab orderly, she isn't an actual researcher; never has and never will be. Second, she's clearly distressed by what she sees being done, despite the fact that she thinks Akari has become consumed by the alien tissue that kept her alive. Jinx speculates that Kasumi is directly involved, but she has no actual idea - she's running on rage in those scenes and barely thinking clearly. She expressly targeted Kasumi in the first place because Jinx knew she'd be feeling guilty and because she was "too nice" to report Jinx for sneaking into her room and accosting her.

Re: Shampoo as a "sociopath soldier"

From chapter 10

"In the grand scheme, it didn't matter where in the world they had been sent to or who they had to fight. The approaches, the tactics, the mission objectives - those would all change to suit the situation, but in the end it was the same simple equation. They had enemies. Enemies were obstacles. Obstacles were for killing. A good and proper Amazon warrior no more worried about killing obstacles than she did about eating or breathing. It was a natural part of life."

"She had been told by Seiran's base psychiatrist that this wasn't very healthy thinking. Shampoo personally chalked it up to a cultural difference of opinion. She was an Amazon of the Nyuchezuu. She had been born one and she would die one. Even if everything else changed, even if the Amazons themselves had to change to survive in the modern world, in her heart Shampoo was completely comfortable and at ease with what she was, who she was, and how she had been raised. When everything else became unsteady, the traditions and values buoyed by 3000 years of history would be a refuse against even the worst storm."

Shampoo's state of mind is never portrayed as what most people would call normal. She sticks very closely to the mores and norms in which she was raised. I guess you could call it sociopathic (it is never written as something most people can easily relate to) but "extremely sociopathic?" Look at the examples on that page and compare them to Shampoo in this fic. Is she ruthless? Yes. Is she much more aggressive and willing to kill someone than Ranma? Definitely. She knows this herself, and even says so a few times. If you're her enemy, or if you're threatening her or her comrades, are you in deep shit? Oh yeah.

But Shampoo never has and never would turn against her teammates or "battle sisters," and she would never target or harm civilians or non-combatants. Hers is a very black and white world: enemies are enemies, everyone else isn't. You treat one set one way, the other set another way.

Of course, this is also colored by the fact that she hates Sirius and all those associated with it, since they wiped out her village with a freaking biological weapon. Not to mention the other issues she has regarding being overshadowed by others, especially Ukyou and now Jinx, being deemed not even worth talking to by Trenchard Cologne, and the fact that her Amazon culture seems to be dying around her. Canon Shampoo isn't a very nice girl, and TRTC Shampoo isn't very nice either, but I find it very ironic that she fits the tvtropes description of "token evil teammate" (it's true, I do write her in that role) more than I think she's a "sociopathic soldier" given the odious examples on that page.

Let me say here...

That I love tvtropes. I've lost many hours there. It should be obvious from the fact that we had Jinx directly mention "tropes" in the story that we love the site and all the work people put into it. Lathis and I love having a Reflections tropes site. I personally check it a few days after every chapter update to see if anyone has added anything new from the most recent chapter or story arc. I love it when I find a trope that someone found that I didn't even notice at the time, despite being one of the authors! There's nothing like seeing it there, going "oh, yeah!" and realizing that you troped without even noticing it.

That said, you'll forgive me for also disagreeing with the interpretation of some of the stuff in there and wondering if perhaps things were uploaded after skimming through certain scenes instead of actually reading them? Especially since those particular comments have been up since Chapter 3, when (in my opinion) they were just as inaccurate as they are today, 30 chapters later.

I'll also say again that the Cydonian Mind has nothing to do with Buddhism or Islam or Socialism, though it IS an Eldritch Abomination (not as bad as T'leth's Mind, though) and canonically the aliens are addicted to psionic entertainment modules in XCOM, and it is also canon that when the Brain on Mars dies, the aliens in the solar system cease to function and die soon after. The only "political statement" regarding the aliens is really vis-a-vis the human Trenchards and what the future of humanity should be. Should the human race stumble forward on it's own or should it be uplifted to become part of the Starspawn, with all the terrible sacrifices that entails? The Mind itself, and the xcom aliens, do not make relateable antagonists - they're too monolithic by game design. Thus I made the decision to have the story be as much about humans vs humans as it was humans vs aliens.

Okay. That's it.

Also: Onoshi (the Reaper that mauled Akari) should be spelled "Onishi" - if someone could correct that on tvtropes, too, that'd be great.

That should be it.

Again: sorry for the long rant of an author note. But 3 pages out of a 1000 shouldn't be too self-indulgent, I don't think. Here's your regularly scheduled chapter, and the beginning of the new story arc.

---

x

---

Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

In Strange Aeons

Chapter 35

---

Cap'n Chryssalid
Lathis - "Enjoy if you will, Tolerate if you won't."

---

Blind eyes, white with cataracts, opened.

The alien, the Oan, could not have known in that instant the consternation it had caused among those around it, or the debate the strange matter of its impossible survival had caused. So long as the aliens they encountered were long since expired, the XCOM trained operatives in India and Juliet squads were comfortable in following known and given patterns of behavior and general interaction. Even under duress. This situation, however, was so far outside the norm it was alien itself.

Disagreement soon became outright arguments.

"I can scarcely believe what it is that I am hearing!" Starfire protested, looking desperately towards anyone but her Ryouga for agreement. "The Guardians are the most lauded and respected of all races!" She held out her hands, willing for the intransient human crew to understand her. "Since the stars themselves were young, the Guardians of the Universe have been bastions of justice and... and goodness... in our galaxy! In all galaxies! It is the greatest honor even to meet one, and you would cast accusations towards him?"

"You guys said that before. That these guys are like Space Police," Ryu argued, his arms crossed and his tone defiant. "But Police get paid. Police have families to protect. What do these Guardians have to gain by it? Especially if they're as old, and all-powerful and totally isolationist like you guys say they are?"

"That's funny. We help police our city, and we don't get paid, we don't have any families to protect," Cyborg replied, a telling grin on his face. "You saying we're too good to be true as well? Besides, like anyone here is actually competent enough to try and claim to understand the behavioral patterns of a race that predates humanity by… oh, all of time itself."

Ryu was left speechless for a moment, not certain how to respond to the cybernetic teen's rebuttal without insulting all of Yankee squadron. When it became obvious that nothing was coming to him on that front, he quickly shifted gears with a huff. "So why run around making space cops if you don't need to? I just don't get it."

"We never said they were omnipotent," Cyborg explained. "Just immensely powerful. Moreso than any of us can really understand. Still, the universe is a big place, and the way I hear it, there aren't too many of these guys. A few thousand Green Lanterns to run around and keep an eye on things for them is hardly a strange idea. Heck, just think of it this way, by your logic, why bother having soldiers, when you have nukes that could destroy all of your enemies with the press of a button?"

Ryu shook his head, still not completely convinced.

"The Green Lanterns," Starfire continued to argue, casting a quick, somewhat envious look in Ukyou's direction. "Are the greatest force for good known. It is they who prevent tyrants from enslaving their fellow sentients; they are the ones who protect less advanced and less powerful races from their neighbors."

"How many Green Lanterns, how many Guardians, do you actually know of?" Mousse asked from where he stood, his hands cupped calmly behind his back.

"Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner all originated from our Earth," Cyborg answered, weighing just how to reveal what he knew. "Obviously there's a ton more, like I said, thousands of them, but not even the Justice League was given a full list of them. No need for it, really."

"Why not?" Ranma asked, quirking his eyebrow. "I thought this League of yours back home was top dog when it came to super-stuff?"

"Do you have a complete list of every soldier from every military on earth, even your allies?" Cyborg replied, stating the obvious. "Besides, why would a universal level organization feel compelled, at all, to give up all of its secrets to some backwater little planet out in the middle of nowhere."

"I know it's hard for you guys to understand," Cyborg explained with an amused chuckle. "But the Earth isn't the most important place in the universe. Just... one heck of an oddity."

"Anyway, back on topic." He gave the soldiers in the hold a knowing look. "Just so you know, Hal was an air force pilot, and Stewart was a US marine. Not saying they're any rhyme or reason to it, but I figure that might mean something to you guys. Also, generally speaking, at least one is always on Earth as part of the Justice League. That's John Stewart."

"The Earth is quite blessed," Starfire added, a little bitterly. "The Vegan system, including my own world of Tamaran, has, for all of recorded history, been regarded as an 'off limits.' Despite being, as you call it, a stone's toss from Earth. None knows why this is, but no Green Lantern has ever entered our system, nor offered us aid, no matter how desperately required…"

There was a moment of awkward silence, as no one was quite sure how to respond to her statement. By this point few were surprised by it, but if it was true - and there was no reason to believe otherwise - it had some unusual implications. The younger Hibiki, seemingly having a somewhat better grasp on her mood, did what little he could to console the Tamaranian and whispered something short into her ear.

"Ummm… well, Rayner seems to spend most of his time outside the solar system; that's more his sort of area," Cyborg finally continued, further explaining the situation. His tone changed, became more confident, as he addressed Ranma and the Major again. "But Hal Jordan and John Stewart are right up there with Superman and Batman, as far as the big heroes go. I'd trust either of 'em with my life, and they trust the Guardians."

"And now we have to trust one of them, too?" Ryu wondered, sighing as his opposition gradually weakened. He gave the mission's commanding officer a quick look, and shook his head. "Sir. You saw what was on that ship. I'm not the smartest guy here by a long shot, but I know what damage caused by a fight looks like. Two of those bodies on that ship didn't just die - they were murdered. One from behind. Maybe they were good people - aliens, whatever - but in the end, they turned on each other."

"They killed each other," he stressed that fact, gesturing towards the deceptively still stasis and medical pod. "And that guy in there couldn't stop it. Maybe he didn't want to." Ryu's scowl deepened. "Maybe he helped."

"If there was a human in there, you would not be so hesitant to release them!" Starfire snapped, angrily. "You would not be so hesitant to trust them."

"That's not true and you know it," Ryu snapped back.

"He has a point," Nabiki spoke up, standing a few steps behind Raven and acting Major Hibiki. "What he was may not matter. He was on that ship. Either he couldn't stop what was happening or he succumbed like everyone else. Then there's the fact that their ship was still here, all this time." She clapped the back of her hand into an open palm for emphasis. "Meaning he - they - couldn't find a way to escape, either."

"What choice do we have?" Raven asked, violet eyes skirting back to the older woman. "What do we really have to lose? Even after we free the ship, we can't leave this dimension until we figure out what's wrong with the EDC." She turned her attention back to the one man who had to make the final call. "Aren't we already taking risks sending people out searching for clues, Major? How is this any different than what we've been doing for days?"

"None of those risks were taken right here, inside the ship," Mousse replied. "We're already low on supplies. Our security is already stretched thin..."

"That's not true, and you know it," Raven countered. "We risked everything when we tested the Green Lantern ring, inside the ship, as you might recall."

Mousse frowned, but had no rebuttal to her sharp reply.

"Let's be honest, here. We risked the ship and everyone on it to test the ring, out of growing desperation," Raven said, glancing around the room. "The ring worked out for us; however, our situation has not yet improved. Trusting the Guardian might be a risk as well, a negligible one in my opinion, but if we continue to do nothing but argue amongst ourselves, then our own destruction will be all but assured."

Nabiki scoffed, but she sounded more amused than dismissive. "Yes. All we have to lose is our lives." Her eyes closed and she wanly smirked, the situation both depressing and sort of exciting. For a gambler. "But that bet's already on the table anyway."

"Your call," Ranma said to his old rival, having kept quiet until then.

"This alien is from their dimension," Shampoo chimed in from where she leaned, casually, against a featureless gray wall. "So they'd know best about it."

Starfire sent a small, thank-you smile to the Amazon before going back to staring at the ship's CO.

Ukyou remained conspicuously silent.

"Alright," Ryouga, the acting Major, finally said, raising a hand to bring the muttering and conversations to a close. He had been contacted, telepathically, by the Guardian still in the stasis tube. The Oan's call had been weak; a mirror to his seemingly dead corpse of a body. Those with similar psionic training, really, everyone at this point, were ordered to guard themselves. There wouldn't - couldn't - be a repeat of Azarath. Never again.

"Alright," he repeated. "I've made my decision."

In the end, the arguments of the Titans and their supporters had swayed him.

It was into that environment that the Guardian finally opened its – his – eyes. Ryouga and Cyborg stood immediately over the withered body, Ranma and Ryu poised nearby and prepared to act if things went downhill. Nabiki and Raven had ducked out to observe from the ship's internal sensors and man the Nav. Not that many were exactly comfortable with the notion of having to fight a being even the Titans called 'powerful beyond description' despite how dead-on-it's-feet it seemed to be. Even the makeshift contingency plans put in place were of dubious effectiveness given what they had heard.

The mouth of the alien stasis tube yawned, exposing its contents to the air of the ship. There was no smell, but a few wisps of steam did rise up from below to coil in the air. Weakly, tentatively, a blue skinned humanoid held out its hand, tiny fingers twitching.

His voice was not a voice:

'Your species…?'

All those present heard it, regardless of their respective defenses.

'Human...' It knew the term; across the hold, various members of the three teams exchanged looks of apprehension and curiosity. 'A Tamaranian as well…' Starfire's eyes lit up, and she squeezed her Ryouga's arm tightly enough for him to wince.

'Yes,' the Guardian's thoughts coalesced, growing more forceful. 'This is acceptable.'

That last thought echoed in the minds of those present, and Cyborg flinched in surprise, while Starfire very nearly glowed, looking quite pleased to be regarded positively by the Guardian - to be singled out by him even. The elder Ryouga, who had heard it before, only stared down, half expecting some sudden move.

"He wants to see you, Ukyou," he said, and off to his side the chef was a mere two paces away. Keeping her back, the officer stared down at the alien. "I hope for your sake you mean well, Guardian."

That said, he and Cyborg stepped to the left and right, giving the chef turned Green Lantern room to squeeze past the two. Chalky eyes followed her movement, and the fingers twitched again, almost hungrily. Compelled, Ukyou didn't even hesitate in taking the creature's hand. Nearly mummified digits, the blue skin tone reduced to an icy pallor, clutched her slim fingers with unnatural speed and strength, and almost instantly the Guardian took on a fresh, faint glow.

The chest expanded as a great breath was taken; dry and frozen lips moistened, and air rushed in from the surrounding atmosphere with an almost visible shockwave. Glowing skin ripped and reformed, the pale blue becoming more and more vivid. Dead eyes burned green and trails of particulate ice floated from the open mouth as the Oan reanimated itself. Ukyou winced in the alien's hold, but made no effort to try and flinch or remove herself. Stark white hair seemed to thicken, and red and white robes materialized over the alien's body.

Finally, the Guardian let her go, and the grasping hand fell to grip the edge of the stasis tube.

'That will do... Green Lantern."

The thought-turned-speech preceded the alien slowly rising from the medical bed, robes flowing below it as it unsteadily hovered. The India Squad members frowned instinctively, previous experience with floating robed aliens coming to mind. A shaking hand rose up, and the Oan glanced down at it, as if taking in its physical form for the first time.

Burning green eyes then turned back up at the assembled humans.

"Do not be alarmed."

A second later, and alarms blared throughout the ship.

"Massive Psionic intrusion in-" Nabiki's voice, clear over the intercom, cut off mid-panic.

At the exact same time, Cyborg clutched his head. "W-what…"

"I see," the Oan said, ignoring the looks of panic quickly turning to action around him. "Fascinating."

Others were already moving. Ranma and Ryu were raising plasma carbines and a churning sphere of green and black was forming between Ryouga's hands. Sirens continued to wail, but the three attacks were preempted by Ukyou appearing directly in front of the hovering Guardian, manifesting a bright green shield that multiplied and overlapped like the shell of a turtle around them.

"Ukyou!" Ryouga snarled. "What the Hell are you-?"

Ranma instinctively lifted the barrel of his rifle to take her out of its line of fire. "Get out of-"

"Please," she pleased. "Just… let him finish. ...Trust me!"

Over the ship's intercom, Raven gave a disquieting hiss of effort, as if struck. Before anyone could do more than notice, Nabiki stormed through the door to the command room, pushing open the door when it stopped mid-way. The Tendo sister's face betrayed open shock and fear.

"It's trying to break our encryption!" she yelled. "I don't know how, but it's finding backdoors inside!"

Still holding his ki blast, Ryouga grimaced, his training kicking in with what the squad controller meant. XCOM encryption, psionic or otherwise, was either 512-bit or 1024-bit. Bremermann's Limit defined the maximum computational speed of a self-contained system in the material universe as 1.36 times 10^50th power bits-per-second per kilogram. A computer the size of the Earth, operating at that theoretical limit, would still take 10^75 years to break through with brute-force hacking. The most secure encryption was an order of magnitude above even that.

But as with any system, there were psionic backdoors.

'It's reading our minds?' he could only guess. 'Somehow duplicating our security clearance? Is that even possible? It can't be - the Nav is genetically and telepathically encoded!'

"This technology was not created by either of your races," The Guardian stated, and the burning green eyes narrowed. "I see. Your species' natural adaptability could be of use to the Corps. I believe this shall suffice."

Still shielded by Ukyou's green energy construct, the Oan blinked, and the green blaze in its eyes abated. Sirens continued to blare within the ship, however. Cyborg, appearing to have also been hacked – or mind read, or both – was also standing and trying to steady himself. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, Ryouga could just barely see Nabiki and Raven in the control room, trying to contain the situation.

"I have analyzed and solved your problem," the Oan continued, unperturbed by the disturbances he had caused. He addressed Ryouga directly, "Hibiki, Ryouga, Major, United Nations Extra-Terrestrial Combat Organization. You have already reviewed some of my logs from the other ship. You may identify me as TRESPASSER, a GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE."

The alien cocked its head to the side.

"I have the means to return you to your dimension."

---

"Isn't this what we wanted?"

Following the Oan's declaration, the squads had been split up. One group had been left to watching the Guardian in the hold, consisting of Shampoo, Mousse and Ryu, with the Kumon Dojo heir in charge. Most everyone else had been crammed into the command room, the door fixed so it shut properly once more. Raven was still in the ship's pilot seat at the nav interface, and next to her, Nabiki had swiveled her chair around, looking frazzled.

The above question had been posed by Ukyou, still in her Green Lantern uniform.

"I mean," she tried again. "Isn't it? Guys?"

Pacing anxiously between Nabiki and Raven, the elder Hibiki was furiously tapping his finger against his bicep, his arms tightly crossed. His shishi hokoudan from before had been dismissed, but the dark mood that formed it still prevailed. He did not look ecstatic about the new situation handed them.

"Nabiki," he said as he paced. "What's the status of our computer systems?"

"I… I don't even know where to begin," the Tendo sister said with an exasperated sigh. "I don't know how he got in, but my best guess is that he copied three preliminary authentications and made several simultaneous login attempts: yours, Cyborg's, and mine. When his hack using my login encountered the 'parallel administrator' safeties, he somehow snuck in by entering Raven's mind. Luckily, she doesn't have the ship control privilege that you and Ranma have. I just… I have no idea how he managed it. It shouldn't even be possible."

Ryouga then turned to Cyborg for some kind of answer.

"I don't know either, man. I've been hacked physically before, and with TK," the teen Titan explained. "I have safeguards, but the guy just walked right through 'em."

"Suggestions?"

"He didn't hit our encryption head on," Nabiki answered, running a hand through her short hair to tuck it nervously behind her ear. "Actually, I think he did try at first, but then he stopped. We need to tighten our login protocols. I can randomly generate 'black keys' for each psi-reader log-in attempt. No one will know what the key is until it's been generated, and they won't get their encryption key until they psionically enter it. But…"

She frowned. "But if this guy left new backdoors I don't know about or… or I don't even know. None of this may matter. It'll keep him from reading our minds to copy our authentication, but he shouldn't be able to do that in the first place! Maybe I could try some other tricks to try and limit security access? INFSec taught me how to work the ship's data security, but I think I'm out of my league here."

"Do it. Do anything you have to," Ryouga ordered, still pacing. "I will not lose control of the ship or anything that leads back to Seiran."

"We also need to do something about it reading our minds like that," Ranma spoke up from where he leaned against the wall, also looking displeased. "Once it got that... power up... it wasn't using normal psionics. It even read Raven's mind… despite her being in the Nav."

"I did not even realize it at first," the Titan added over the ship's intercom. "Even when I realized what was happening, there was nothing I could do. It was like chasing a ghost."

"It…" Ukyou hesitantly interrupted. "It isn't an 'it.' It is a he."

As if this crossed some line, both Ranma and Ryouga locked their eyes on her.

"Ukyou," Ryouga said, and thrust out his hand. "The Ring."

"What?" she asked, momentarily dumbstruck. "You mean?" She looked very quickly down at her hand. "But why…?"

"You stood between us and an alien actively usurping our ship's systems," Ryouga explained, his tone of voice less than pleased. "I'm concerned that it may be having an effect on your judgment. The Ring, Squaddie. Now."

"But I… Ryouga-honey, you don't think that I…?" She quickly shut her mouth, saw Ranma was just as adamant at the acting Major, and straightened with a salute. "Y-yes, sir!"

Starting to remove the power ring she hesitated for just a second, and then wrenched it off to quickly hand it over to her CO. At the same time, Ranma appeared next to her, draping his shirt over her – it was sufficiently long to protect her modesty in the case of her uniform dissolving. Clutching it to herself, Ukyou felt and saw the green parts of her GL uniform vanish in little puffs of green smoke…

Leaving the black body suit behind.

Looking herself over - as surprised as those present - she could see that the black part of the uniform now covered her completely. Only the green parts were gone.

Privately, secretly, she also felt the power of the ring still burning inside her… almost as if it were one with the course and flow of her battle aura, as if it had merged with her Manipura chakra. Touching a hand to her stomach, she could almost feel it in there, under the surface. The realization was both troubling and… strangely comforting. The ring may have been physically taken away, but they were all but one, so perhaps it didn't even matter.

"At least it doesn't strip me down when I take it off," she said, once-more-blue eyes looking up at Ryouga and her ring. She coughed politely and returned to an at-attention position, back straight.

"Very good, Squaddie," the acting Major said with a pleased nod of his head.

"Sir," Ukyou quickly added in her own defense. "I intervened because the situation was volatile and I wished to prevent a firefight. There was no time to ask for permission, sir."

"It would have been nice if that 'Guardian of the Universe' out there had asked before jacking into our systems and setting off every alarm we have," Ryouga remarked, pocketing the ring. "At least when we do it, we make sure the ships are empty first."

Then again, they usually did it by killing off everything in said ships… so perhaps it wasn't that bad of a trade off.

"Ukyou brought up a good point before, though," Ranma said with a thoughtful 'hmm.' "We should have expected something like this when we decided to thaw it - him out."

"At the time, he looked like a dried up old mummy," Nabiki reminded him. "No offense to Cologne or any of our other respected but shrunken elders back home."

"He looked more alive than the Ethereals we fight," Ranma countered. "Looks are deceiving with those big brain types."

"I think the question is what to do now," Ryouga reasoned. "We have to at least hear it out. He says he can fix the EDC and get us home. This is exactly what we wanted, what we hoped, to hear… which is why I'm suspicious now that I've heard it. It sounds too damn convenient."

---

Trespasser floated serenely in the hold, mere inches over his now closed and recessed medical tube.

"You have many questions," the Guardian stated.

Around him, the entire crew had been assembled, including the beleaguered Kuno and Konatsu. The Titans were spread all across the room, Starfire floating close to his side, while Raven hung near the very back of the room, with Ryouga and Cyborg each leaning against respective walls across from each other. In contrast, Juliet and India squads were huddled together in the center of the hold: Shampoo and Mousse hung out near Kuno and Konatsu, watching them while at the same time taking in the situation. Ukyou was nestled between Ryu and Ranma, still wearing the latter's shirt over her form fitting black uniform. The elder Ryouga hung out on the edge. Only Jinx wasn't present, having slept soundly since her brush with death after the accident outside.

"You can start by explaining where we are," Ryouga stated.

"This is not unexpected," the Oan replied, slowly blinking its faint green eyes. "Having scanned your minds and assimilated information on your culture, I will attempt to phrase it in way you can visualize. You are already aware of the fact that your groups are from different multiverses."

"Imagine one of those multiverses as a… city block, with multi-tiered structures. Buildings. Standing on the top of one building, you can see the tops of others, some shorter and some higher. From the top of one building, you can descend into the lower floors quite easily, or with difficulty, you can leap from one roof top to another. Some even have bridges between them, making this less dangerous. The gap between buildings in the multiverse we come from has a name: The Bleed. Those who fall into this area of non-existance do not return."

The Guardian continued in a bored, emotionally detached tone.

"Imagine now that the flat surface on which those buildings are constructed… is but one face of a three dimensional dodecahedron. Imagine now, not twelve faces, but thousands. At the edge of each distinct plane, one can still attempt to jump to other planes, the trip obviously being much more dangerous."

A blue finger rose up to accentuate the coming point. "Alternatively, one can go deeper, into the basement of any given building. Below the surface of each plane of each multiverse, towards the center of the whole. Here, one does not need to jump to adjacent planes. We are within that theoretical space, not between multiverses, but beneath them. This is but one of many… sink holes… that litter this 'space.'

He seemed to contemplate saying more, but declined. "This explanation will suffice for the time being."

"I've heard that Guardians have almost godlike powers," Ukyou spoke up, shyly raising her hand as if waiting for a teacher to call on her in school. "You probably can't get us out of this dimension, but can you free the ship for us?"

"That would be a wasteful expenditure of my power," Trespasser answered in the same emotionless tone. "Additionally, it would be dangerous to do so."

"Dangerous?" Ryu asked when the Oan failed to elaborate. "How so?"

Trespasser took a second-longer breath in what could have been the equivalent of a sigh. "You have detected the warp ripples that plague this dimension. If I were to use my powers on any great scale, a resulting warp bubble would form, engulfing myself and everything surrounding me. The feedback would be immense and destructive. None of you would survive."

"The power of the Lantern before you will suffice to assist in the extraction of the ship," he concluded. "Doing so will be adequate practice for what is to later occur. You, Lantern, and you, Tamaranian, are ideally suited to assist me."

"Assist you in what capacity?" asked Starfire, paying rapt attention to the blue skinned alien.

"I require a strong right and left arm, as your races put it."

That seemed to unsettle the alien princess for a moment, but then she quickly regained her certitude and nodded enthusiastically. "I will gladly render any assistance which you require!"

"What about your last crew?" Nabiki asked her voice lowered to a casual, analytical tone. "Why weren't you able to help them like you're helping us?"

The Guardian deigned to glance down at the mercenary girl directly.

"That crew was compromised soon after entering this dimension. Overuse of their abilities accelerated their mental and physical deterioration." The corners of his eyes crinkled as he stared at her. "Consider this: their lives were devoted to the Corps and to the ideals it represents. You all understand what that means; your society is among the most militaristic we have encountered. The Lanterns who accompanied me here each fell in the line of duty."

"We saw bodies throughout the ship," the Tendo sister pressed, leaning towards him.

The Guardian's face was as impassive as stone. "As I have said, they fell in the line of duty. Where they fell, or how they fell in the end, is essentially irrelevant. You have surmised that what happened on my ship is happening on this one. You do not wish a repeat of this, nor do I. Cease pointless inquiries. There are more important things to discuss."

Despite this being all but an order from a godlike being, Nabiki frowned, about to do the exact opposite.

"Don't think she's the only one with those sorts of questions," Ryouga spoke up in her defense… but followed that by agreeing, "But that can come later. I think we're all curious what your big plan is."

"My big plan," the Oan repeated the words as if they were uniquely childish. "My recommendations are the following. You have the means to leave this dimension, even as twisted as it is, but the Navigator you are using has gone… insane."

"Insane?" Ranma asked, looking to Cyborg for an explanation.

Cyborg shrugged, looking back at Juliet Squad's lieutenant. "Dude, you have been pretty twitchy lately, and, seriously, you gotta be kinda crazy to wear your hair like that in the first place..."

"Hey! Not me! And don't diss the pigtail, baldie!"

"Guys…"

"This ship," the Oan interrupted. "Uses part of a unique multidimensional entity to direct itself through the non-space and Bleed-friction between multiverses. We Guardians have encountered these creatures before. My ship used part of one, now long since gone. With a functional core, it is possible to navigate blindly but safely through the hazards in this non-space. You are fortunate to have such a device; most who end up here have not even that."

Trespasser sounded almost – almost amused. "However, the same psychosis that is slowly affecting all of you has had an accelerated effect on the core. Like a cancerous body, it is being rejected by the other parts of itself scattered across the other dimensions. Like an infection, the other fragments of the entity act to isolate this part of itself to preserve the greater whole."

"To escape," he finally told them, "We will need a way to cheat the fact that your navigator is insane. We will need to trick it into becoming 'accepted' ... I can do this."

"How?" Ryouga asked, eager to get to the point.

The Oan shrugged his small shoulders, answering only at his own pace. "I will require three materials in addition to the technology in this ship. First, we will require an alloy called 'Nth Metal' in our dimension."

"Are you stating that there are crafts of Thanagarian origin trapped within this area of null-space?" Starfire asked, fascinated.

"Thanagarians?" the younger Hibiki asked. "You mean like that bird lady, Hawkgirl, or something like that?"

"Starfire, you've mentioned Thanagarians to us at least once before," Ryu said, looking over at the alien girl. Needless to say, it was in better times.

The Tamaranian Princess eyed Ryu coldly for a moment, and then nodded. "Indeed. They are an older race, native to our dimension. Though seemingly constantly embroiled in various wars, they have adopted several unique technologies, one of which is the widespread usage of Nth metal."

"Heh, yeah," Cyborg added with a wry grin, "They almost turned the Earth into a Hyperspace bypass once, too. So: not exactly one of our closest interstellar friends out there."

"What is this Nth Metal?" the older Ryouga inquired, "And what does it do?"

"Nth Metal is imbued with the power of a godlike entity native to our multiverse," Trespasser explained, speaking as if such an occurrence was commonplace. "An entity superficially similar to… the creature Trigon, which some of you are familiar with. I can use it to trick the intact Navigator on this ship."

"I hate to sound slow," Raven asked in a quiet voice from the back of the room, "But how, exactly? I know some of the properties of Nth metal, myself. I've never heard of it being used in this manner before."

"You are aware of its anti-magical properties." This was a statement, not a question. "You are not aware that we, the Guardians, have taken steps to control the rather rampant use of magical forces within our universe. The weakness in the barriers between magical planes is… something we are aware of and have attempted to remedy. I personally know numerous uses for Nth metal that you do not."

Stepping away from the wall, the younger Ryouga shrugged carelessly. "Yeah, you know everything about everything, no doubt. But didn't you say that there were several things you needed? What else do you need besides the metal?"

Unperturbed, Trespasser returned to his… recommendations.

"There is only one source of Nth Metal that is locally available to us. A Thanagarian ship crashed here soon after we did, using a piece of the same trans-dimensional entity used in my vessel. As a large command craft, it possesses an Nth Metal Forge. One of the last missions assigned to my Lanterns was to retrieve this metal from the ship. To my disappointment, by the time we had identified what we needed, they were too far gone and unable to complete my objectives. You are more capable… at the moment. A team will be sent to retrieve no less than two of your kilograms in pure Nth Metal."

The Oan quickly added, "You will be able to identify the metal more easily than you expect. Thanagarians are a rather primitive and barbaric race. Given such a powerful metal from their 'god' they then turned it into axes and clubs. I expect their ship to be strewn with such weapons. Retrieve eight or nine of them, intact, and uncorrupted. I can extract the pure metal from the alloy they use. The task is straightforward. I leave you, Major Hibiki, to determine who you send."

The elder Ryouga said nothing at that to indicate his agreement… or acquiescence.

"Additionally, I will require... certain information about this dimension and a source of…" Trespasser seemed to think about how to describe what was next. "You may think of it as a dimensional record. Furthermore, while the core of your E-D-C is intact, it will require some adjustment and improvement. A map is required, as is information and perhaps... parts from another ship, one similar to this one."

"Similar to this one?" Ranma asked. "Wait a sec! You mean an alien ship? Our aliens?"

"Yes." the Guardian replied. "Your aliens. I am aware of a ship of theirs that came here, ages ago, but it has been lost. First and most importantly, we will need a piece of an entity I know as 'Heresiarch,' a heretical god expelled from its home multiverse. Over the eons, Heresiarch has been all but consumed by this dimension. Only whispers of it remain and I alone can decipher those whispers and learn the truths I seek. What Heresiarch knows, I must know."

"Ummm, ya kinda lost me there," Cyborg butted in, looking a bit annoyed, actually. "I was with you on the Nth metal thing, since that actually makes sense. But now you want us to pick up God chunklets out there?"

"That is exactly what you must do," Trespasser replied, as if explaining something truly elementary. "Heresiarch's corpse is not difficult to find. Return a piece of its inner recesses to me. I will be able to know what it knows."

"Psychometry?" Nabiki guessed.

"More pseudo science mumbo jumbo, you mean," Cyborg countered.

"Haven't you said you know magic users in this Justice League of yours?" Mousse asked. "I'd think you were used to pseudo science and mumbo jumbo?"

Holding up his hands, the younger Ryouga waved his hands. "Hey, whoa. I think you're all kind of missing the major point here. This guy wants us to go grave robbing a God, and you're worrying about semantics?" Turning to Trespasser, he frowned. "I'm guessing there's some catch here. Exactly why would it be so easy to find this guy's corpse? This place is practically an inside-out planet, where are we gonna find him?"

"I shall point you towards Heresiarch's corpse. You only need to return with a small piece of it. The danger is… not terribly significant, for those with sufficient willpower."

"Again, that doesn't answer my question at all," Ryouga growled. "What's the catch? For that matter, why do I get the feeling this isn't some body in a coffin you're sending us after?"

"As this is the only way for any of us to escape this dimension, it should not matter what… catch there is. I have answered your questions. I have given you what you need," Trespasser's burning green eyes moved across the assembled teens. "You have been told what you must do."

The eyes focused hard on one in particular.

"Will you?"

---

Ranma could see the uncertainly on his old rival's face as he paced. For the moment, the only ones in the command room were himself, Ryouga, and Nabiki. The NCOs would be let in later, and technically Jinx was still sleeping in a corner, but right now it was up to the two officers and the one mission coordinator to figure out what to do. Ranma knew full well that Ryouga, as acting Major, had the authority vested in him by Seiran and Commander Yasuda to make nearly any decision in the field.

He could set or modify ROE, mission objectives, squad deployments, etc. Some officers would do just that, and make their decisions based entirely on their own experiences and insights. Ranma knew his old frenemy, and knew that Ryouga simply wasn't the sort to be entirely confident in the choices he alone made. He would and could make the split second calls, but he would never be entirely happy with them. If possible, he would almost always try and look for the opinions of those he trusted. A CO did not run a military unit by popular consent, nor did he confer with everyone under his command. He couldn't. Nabiki and Ranma thus represented the smallest unit of alternate viewpoints that could be discretely called together regarding command decisions.

They expressed their concerns in reserved, thoughtful tones.

Letting Nabiki go first, Ranma cupped his chin and reminisced for a moment. Not only was this whole situation almost insanely far removed from Nerima, it was a veritable lifetime away from the routine sort of work they had been picked and trained to do for UNETCO. It was still strange to think of Ryouga, the pig headed, pig cursed, idiot, as a superior officer, even in only an 'acting' capacity. It was somewhat strange how little Ranma minded being second to his rival, at least in this one thing.

The truth was that he had never enjoyed being in command. Neither of them did, as far as he knew. They were loners at heart. It was simply the kind of mentality one had to develop in the interests of the Art. Making decisions that others had to follow; considering the safety and use of others, especially those weaker than yourself, presented troubling implications for people who took seriously vows to protect the weak and to defend your friends at all costs. Training and reason told him that the mission had to come first, that there was more to the world than your clique of friends and subordinates, but it could only go so far against the grain.

Ranma Saotome didn't mind being partly absolved of that responsibility. He would look after Juliet and those under his command, but between the two of them, Ryouga was and would always be the more ruthless and, in a strictly tactical sense, even more practical. He wouldn't cling to a failing strategy or course of action due to pride. Setbacks, however temporary, were something he understood to be part of life. Ranma Saotome, on the other hand, did not and could not bear to lose. And he knew it.

Nabiki finished explaining her concerns and took a few slow breaths. She had a number of very good points: they still knew very little about this alien, Trespasser, and had little reason to trust him, or it, with their lives. Every Green Lantern on that other ship was dead, and by the looks of it, many had killed each other or even themselves. Where had this Guardian been then? When pressed, it seemed like he just wanted to dismiss the whole issue of the other ship and the other Green Lanterns. Trespasser was also clearly giving suggestions that were functionally orders.

That set a very dangerous precedent, especially given the lack of control that ate away at most of the crew.

At the same time, they couldn't be too overt in their opposition to the Oan either. Ranma presented the case for a measured response: currently, Trespasser was their only source of fresh, actionable information, and he had the only passable plan anyone had thought up since crash landing. Dismissing his 'suggestions' was entirely out of the question, but so was bowing to them with helpless compliance; they had to integrate the Guardian into the command structure in a way that maintained military discipline and the existing command structure. Elements could not be allowed to deviate and form a 'command within a command' – the crew would splinter and tear itself apart.

This being a more delicate matter, Ryouga left it to Nabiki and the Saotome heir to figure out just how to pick from column A and column B without falling entirely into one or another. Ranma knew he mostly went with his gut when it came to these things, and said as much. Luckily, Nabiki was already a step ahead.

They brought Trespasser into the command room with them, alone, and agreed to the basics of his plan, provided he gave them some additional information. At first, this was the material relevant to the two mission targets, which he readily supplied. Amid that albeit necessary information, they were also able to acquire more data on the dead Lanterns on the ships, and the decryption used on their logs. Trespasser gave this over and agreed to assist Ukyou in the use of her power ring in one sentence, seemingly unperturbed by whatever his 'Lanterns' had recorded in their spare time... or final hours.

Dismissed, the Oan left, and Ranma silently wondered if they had been mind read during the meeting.

He wondered if they were being mind read now.

"You'll go crazy if you think like that," Nabiki had said at the notion. "It usually doesn't do any good to over-think things anyway, especially when it comes to you two idiots."

"We still have the psionic pacification bands," Ryouga reminded them… and himself. Clearly it had been in his thoughts.

"You think they'd work on that guy?" Nabiki asked, sounding doubtful.

"I kind of doubt it," the lost one admitted. "But he wasn't the one I was thinking of using them on. "I get the feeling that if we went at each other's throats that this Guardian wouldn't twitch a neuron to help any of us. So we'll have to help ourselves… and police ourselves, too."

"That's crossin' a line, man," Ranma observed with a frown. "You think it'll go over?"

"I honestly don't know."

They returned to the material at hand: Trespasser had given the location of the two mission targets. One was about five thousand kilometers away. The other, the supposed Thanagarian ship, was located in a flat expanse Ryu and Ukyou had crossed near before, and about two hundred kilometers away. In light of how massive the structure was, it was surprising that even one of the targets was that close by. They went over the rest of the data, and made some preliminary selections regarding which groups would go to which targets.

Finally, they brought the active duty NCOs in: Ryu and the younger Hibiki.

"I'd like Raven brought in, too," Nabiki reminded them as they made the call. She didn't need to elaborate why.

---

Raven wearily sighed as the debate continued to unfurl as to who would be sent on the respective missions for the Guardian. Honestly, the dark Titan's initially star-struck impression of the nigh legendary race had tarnished surprisingly quickly upon her first actual meeting with one of said aliens. She knew that the Guardians were supposed to be as old as time and all knowing, and that she supposed it made sense that such a hyper intelligent being would have little patience for answering such base inquiries, but still… he was kind of a jerk.

Regardless, she was hoping that the Major would finally rescind his senseless order restricting her to the ship. If they were to be searching out the body of a god, then, well, who other than herself was more qualified to go on that mission? Even forgetting the Guardian's needlessly cryptic statement concerning willpower, which limited the field of viable candidates to herself and Cyborg regardless, she didn't like the idea of sending any of her friends into such a potentially volatile situation.

'That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die.'

It was not a quotation which she took lightly, not with the life she had lived. In her experience, there was no such thing as a 'dead' god, not in the way that a mortal could possibly understand the concept.

It wasn't like she didn't have outer space experience, either. She was a trained pilot, even in her home dimension, though not nearly as proficient as Robin, Cyborg, or Starfire; UNETCO had trained her to handle outer atmospheric operations; she was more than capable of taking care of herself. In fact, she had never felt stronger. Her time in Azarath had not just rejuvenated her, it had saturated her with her father's dark power, filled her almost beyond her capacity to contain. A small part of her – a very small, seductive part – secretly desired to test the power of their vaunted new Green Lantern. Their strength was all but legendary, but she had never seen one in action first hand. How much of the legend was truth, and how much was simple hyperbole?

Crushing even a fledgling Green Lantern with her own power would be –

An unexpected sound derailed her (increasingly disturbing) train of thought. Even as the rest of the discussion continued around her, Raven looked to the source. There… curled up not-quite comfortably in the corner of the room, was Jinx. The pink haired witch was lying right where Ryouga and Nabiki had moved her back when the Guardian had awoken some time ago. Much to Raven's amazement, she watched as Jinx's eyes fluttered open.

She had been expecting the sorceress to be unconscious for at least another hour or two, but she was already waking up? Once again, Jinx was proving to be more resilient than her tiny, wiry body would indicate. Groggily, the slit-eyed girl sat up on her sleeping bag, lazily rubbing one of her bright, pink eyes as she took in her surroundings.

Slowly, the conversation drew to a close as everyone else present finally started to notice Jinx's unexpected awakening. For a moment, she looked confused as she obviously tried to puzzle out what was going on, but the second her eyes settled on Raven, they narrowed and she shot up to her feet. A second later, Raven pushed herself up to her feet as well, shifting into a defensive stance as Jinx stalked across the room, directly towards her, finger held out accusingly.

"You," hissed the irate sorceress.

Immediately, their Ryouga shifted over, holding up his hands wardingly –

"Now Jinx…"

- Only for Jinx to deftly juke around him so fluidly that it nearly left him spinning in her wake. Starting to grow concerned, Raven lifted her hands as well, holding them defensively, rather than in a placating manner.

'Is – is she actually going to attack me? After I helped to save her?'

She actually felt her temper begin to slip at that thought. How ungrateful could the pink haired brat, be? Not only had she helped her, but she'd defended her against the unfair accusations and dismissive attitudes leveled her way by Ukyou and the others, and this was how Jinx repaid her? She had a half a mind to…

Jinx stopped her angry march right in front of Raven, less than three inches separating their noses. Normally, Jinx would have been looking down at Raven, but without the platform boots that made up part of her normal costume, she was surprisingly close to Raven's height – not counting her hair, which rose up another good eight inches above them.

The dark Titan held her action, not wanting to be the one to initiate any attack, but the proximity was starting to make her nervous. To both of her sides, she saw the older Hibiki stepping in, looking equally intent to break up the potential confrontation before it began.

Jinx darted forward, faster than anyone could react… crushing her lips to Raven with startling ferocity. A second later, her hands found the back of Raven's head, weaving through her violent hair and holding her firmly in place. All she could do was flail her hands ineffectually as Jinx lip-locked her into submission.

"MMmmph!"

Needless to say, her would-be rescuers were stopped dead in their tracks, eyes going wide as teacups. A pindrop could have been heard throughout the rest of the room, until, finally, Jinx pushed her back, and right down into her chair. Wide eyed herself, Raven could only stare as Jinx suddenly leaned forward, placing her hand on the back of her chair as she loomed over the shocked Titan.

"There!" she declared. "How do you like knowing you just made out with the most unbearable person you've ever known and not being able to do anything about it?"

Needless to say, words failed Raven at that point. Frankly, she was surprised that her body was still able to remember how to breathe after that shock. Which only made it all the more disorienting when Jinx suddenly spun away from her, turning her hot glare on their Lost Boy so quickly that he still hadn't recovered from the last shock he'd received.

"As for you, Mr. Hands," she all but growled. That sobered him up quickly enough. The master martial artist actually took a step back as Jinx poked a finger into his chest, the look of righteous female fury threatening to reduce him to a cinder…

And then, just as quickly as her fury built up, it faded away to nothing, leaving Jinx staring at him, a questioning expression on her face. "You… whatever it was you were doing, it was to help me, wasn't it?"

It took him a moment to recover from the sudden reversal. Nodding quickly, he took a moment to stand straight again and straighten out his uniform. "That's – that's it exactly. You're a member of my team, Jinx. I would never do anything to hurt you… you should know that by now."

The sincerity in his voice actually set Jinx back a step, the uncertainty on her face only growing as she stared at him. It quickly faded away, though, as she looked down to the floor. "Right… because I'm a member of your team…"

It looked like Ryouga wanted to say something more, but before he had the chance, Jinx spun away again, grinning wildly at the rest of the people gathered in the Control Room. "Anyway! Looks like I've been out for a bit!" She fired a coquettish wink Ryu's way. "I miss anything gossip worthy, Mountain of a Thousand Fists guy?"

---

"We've done some visual scouting of the areas in question," Nabiki presented, activating two of the displays to show first, a large view of the topside of the hulk, and a zoomed in view of one spot in particular. "Luckily, not only is this one fairly close by, but because of the hollow-sphere we're stuck in, we can check it out from long range with our basic recon kit. So here it is. We believe that this is the Thanagarian ship."

The picture showed a somewhat grainy vessel, half buried in the cratered and jagged terrain. A large buttress rose up, like the tail of a submerging fish, frozen in place. The main body seemed to have been scuttled. It wasn't so much 'compromised' as it had been blown completely away from the inside out. There must have been bits of it scattered for hundreds of kilometers, and the ship itself seemed to once have been the size of a modern football stadium.

"It looks a bit like a toilet bowl with handles and a beak," Ranma couldn't help but comment, and the display changed to highlight three sections. "We've identified the areas most likely to have intact Nth metal salvage. Trespasser wants two kilograms, but we're setting a goal of three times that, just to be in the safe side. Apparently there were some serious 'warp ripples' or the like out there, but things have cleared up. We'll need to find metal that hasn't been… altered by the bad mojo."

"How will we know the difference between the good stuff and the bad?" Ryu asked, standing next to the younger Hibiki, and Jinx, who had been allowed to stay since her recovery. Raven, who had also been brought in, was seated next to Nabiki.

"According to the big-head out there, 'impure Nth metal' will… um…" Ranma coughed, not quite sure how to put it. "It'll… have tentacles..."

Instantly, the pink haired witch's hand shot up, and she waved it back and forth frantically. "Ohh, ooh, not it! Not it!"

"Not a fan of the tentacles, huh?" Ryu gave the witch a playful nudge.

Hopping a whole foot away from the martial artist, she leveled a glare his way. "Hey! I know how you Japanese guys are with your 'tentacle' fetishes. Just keep all your wiggly parts to yourself, buddy!"

Ryu laughed but turned back to his immediate commanding officers.

"Seriously, sirs," the sergeant asked again, just to be absolutely sure. "Tentacles?"

"Yeah," Ranma replied in a monotone. "Tentacles. And eyes. Or so we've been told. The mission is just sounding better and better, isn't it? Apparently this metal is… weird… even by the standards of its own dimension. And when I asked 'how big' the tentacles were, your Oan buddy said they were 'limited by nearby organic matter.'" Ranma said that part with too-deep mocking tone. "Anyway, we can blast those if they get too frisky. Or naughty."

"Well, we do all love blasting things," the younger Hibiki stated absently as he studied the image. "Do we have anything else on this site?"

"We do. The area around the ship is pretty flattened. We've identified some extensive ridges that you can see as dark patches up there. We plan to approach from the open areas on the left side of the image. One team will take insertion point Whiskey-Blue, and the other will use Whiskey-Red. Blue is near the main body of the ship as you can see, and Red is by the intact rear. ROE is free fire. Engage and destroy any perceived hostiles."

"Aside from the tentacles stuff, are we looking at any other opposition?" Ryu then asked. "Is the ship still operational? It looks pretty trashed."

"We won't know that until we get to the site," this time the acting Major answered. "While our primary objective there is to acquire this Nth metal, I also want, if possible, a hack done on the ship's computers and the usual salvage of alien technology. Trespasser mentioned that this ship arrived here using a piece of a 'navigator' and it could be useful to see what kind of EDC equivalent these Thangarians used."

Once he finished speaking, the younger Ryouga spoke up again. "Wait a minute. Two teams? How many people are you sending there? I thought the idea was to hit both targets at the same time, you know, to reduce the amount of time that we're all being driven slowly insane?"

"That's right. But the other target is too far away to run two parallel missions using just the MARS armors," the elder explained. "The target designated Whiskey-Alpha-One, the corpse of this 'Heresiarch' thing, is outside the range of anything except Pathfinder itself. Given the experiences of Ryu and Ukyou in long term travel topside, I've decided not to send out expeditions that will be exposed for more than two hours at a time. Once Pathfinder is free, all teams will be inserted as close to their targets as possible."

Ranma further clarified: "Unit-Red will insert at Whiskey-Red, on the Thanagarian ship. Unit-Blue will do the same thing at Whiskey-Blue. Unit-Gold…"

"It should be Unit-Yellow, Saotome."

"Gold is cooler than Yellow."

"That doesn't matter, it's a primary color."

"And this is why your technique names are so lame and boring…" Ranma waved off his technical CO and pesky rival. "Anyway, Unit-GOLD will insert at Whiskey-Gold, several kilometers near WA-1. Since we've been unable to scout WA-1, we'll be doing that with Pathfinder as we make our approach. So three teams."

"That seems like a bit of a waste of time and resources," Ryouga grumbled. Not caring about the glares that were fired his way, he simply shrugged. "In the time that everyone else will be able to reach the Thanagarian ship, Starfire would be able to reach the other target. If you actually let Raven out of the ship, then it'd let Starfire tow a full team with her easily."

Raven nodded, obviously agreeing with his assessment. "It is quite possible, and it could save us a lot of time and effort."

"Speed is obviously important," Nabiki answered, agreeing initially. "But the space overhead is riddled with hazards and who knows what else. Since we… since I… lost the Roaming Susan, we have to rely on Pathfinder's sensors and finding a compromise between going fast and being careless. Besides, there is no top speed in space. What limits how fast any of us can travel up there is how fast we can map anomalies."

"I'm also not sending anyone out alone," the elder Ryouga declared. "Don't forget that personal armor is not fully rated to protect any of us from the conditions topside. We have to be careful with how we deploy."

Both Ryouga and Raven shared a look.

"No one was suggesting you send anyone out alone," stated the latter.

"That's right," Ryouga reiterated. "Starfire would be bringing a whole team with her, and Raven's power would be protecting the rest of the team. And if they took Cyborg with them, well, he has sensors, too. I bet he'd be able to get the squad through with a minimum of fuss."

"And if anything happened to Cyborg or Starfire, you'd be unable to navigate back," the older Hibiki reminded them with a frown. "Not to mention that we don't know yet if Raven can actually shield anyone from the radiation topside; not to mention that we want to avoid exposing Starfire to the glow up there. And the fact that all of Cyborg's sonic-based technology won't function in hard vacuum. And the fact that I want him on the Thanagarian ship to access their computers and check their EDC equivalent. It may be a waste of time and resources, but it's the safest course of action. We're not so desperate we need to drag people around in a tethered bubble."

"We'll have the ship free soon, and it presents the safest means of transportation," he said, and moved on, "Now, Units Red and… Gold will be surface deployments. Those will have to include the two soldiers in MARS armor. Unit Blue will insert from Pathfinder almost directly into the alien ship with minimal vacuum exposure."

He gave Raven a knowing look. "You want to be on the team that hits WA-1, don't you?"

She simply nodded.

"You should know we have almost no information on that target," Ryouga reminded her and the NCOs as well. "At least with an alien ship, we know what we're looking at… basically anyway. But Trespasser's been very vague about WA-1. We have a location and that's virtually it."

"I am aware. All the more reason for me to go," she replied evenly. "No one else here is as versed as myself in the esoteric arts..."

She shot Jinx a quick look, but the pink haired witch simply looked away and sniffed silently.

"As such, my experience would be invaluable in the case of any unforeseen circumstances. Knowing our luck, there will almost certainly be something unusual there. Also," she added, a bit self consciously, "The Oan did mention that Willpower would be an important attribute in this particular mission, and aside from Cyborg, and Jinx - who's been asleep most of the time - I do believe I have been holding up significantly better than the bulk of the crew."

Walking over and leaning in close, the older Hibiki turned her chair around. "Are you sure about this?" he whispered. "You heard what the Oan said. What if you're… susceptible… to whatever is out there?"

"Then why send anyone out?" she whispered back. "Anything you fear happening to me is just as likely to happen to anyone else. Honestly, I think if we were to run into a hostile entity, I would be more capable of defending myself now, having more experience in such situations."

He stared at her, hard, as if looking for some kind of ulterior motive.

"You can trust me," she said, sensing it was what he wanted to hear. "I won't make the same mistake twice. I can do this."

He sighed, reaching up with his wounded hand to touch his temples, only to pause and let the hand drop.

"… Alright… you're in. You do have the most experience with this sort of stuff. Just... watch yourself." Mind made up, Ryouga turned her chair back around and addressed the others present. "Listen up. We're going to hash out exactly what the team makeup is going to be here. Raven. Since you have experience with these sorts of things, you and an NCO will have Unit-Gold and the mission to WA-1. You'll be given Ukyou's personal armor, since she doesn't need it at this point."

"Yipee, Miss Perfect gets to be team leader." Holding up her hand again, Jinx muttered in an annoyed voice, "Permission to switch back to the tentacle ride of horror mission?"

"I know you're eager to get out and do something more interesting than dismantling enemy ships," the acting Major observed, walking back to stand near the front of the group. "But you just recovered. We haven't even checked to see… Raven said that your hands were injured, too…?"

Jinx held up her now bandaged hand, only to fire a glacially flat glare the acting Major's direction. "Oh really? I can't imagine how that might have happened, sir."

"An accident," he replied, plainly. "But you see my point. Raven, I guess you'll want sergeant Hibiki to investigate this 'Heresiarch' with you? You'll probably want Cyborg, too, but..."

Again, she nodded in agreement. "They have both proved stable so far. To round out the team, I would recommend either Ryu or Shampoo, as neither of them have shown any signs of… discomfort. Though that might mean you may want to keep Ryu in reserve to assist with the Thanagarian vessel."

"There's no need to send two sergeants with one group," Ranma reminded her.

"I'll be sending Ukyou," Ryouga said, now having a good idea of how things should be arranged given the recent little additions. "I doubt we'll need her or that ring to retrieve some of this Nth Metal, and her 'green light' powers should help if Unit Gold encounters unexpected trouble."

He didn't add that Trespasser had specifically 'suggested' that the Lantern be sent on that mission, further necessitating sending Raven along as a countermeasure. A fact the Oan had to have expected as well. It was a measure of how bad the situation was that there was little Ryouga could think to do to circumvent this fact. It was hard even thinking straight sometimes; the damage across much of his body further draining his mental resolve.

The officer then announced on the other teams, most of which had been decided beforehand:

"Ryu, you've got Unit Red. You'll take one of the MARS armors and sortie with Starfire as a pair. Buddy system rules. Watch each other's backs. Ranma, you'll have Blue: Mousse and Cyborg. I want his technical expertise on the ship. Find out everything you can about the EDC, their Nth Metal, their tech... anything and everything. Raven, Shampoo will accompany you in Gold with the other MARS. Hibiki, Raven and Ukyou will give you cover whenever topside. I'd like all of you to stick together to make sure you're protected from exposure; we have no idea what's inside WA-1, either, so move carefully."

"Oh joy," the younger Hibiki growled. "I get to play peacemaker between Ranma's fiancée brigade, only now they're gonna be super charged with a Green Lantern Ring and powered armor?"

"Heh! That'd be the most epic cat fight ever!" Jinx cheered. A second later, she spun around to glare at the Major. "Um, asides from the awesome grudge match you've set up, you appear to be missing one integral piece of this 'plan'. What am I going to be doing? And it better not involve sitting around here babysitting the nutters. That's what you got Biki for."

His silence after the statement implied that was just what he had been planning.

"You were injured," he reminded her. "You're probably still injured. At the very least, you must be exhausted. The safety of your teammates should be your first concern. If circumstances change, I may amend the teams later. Hibiki, Kumon, any questions?"

"Now probably isn't the time to express a concern for my own life, getting stuck between Ukyou and Shampoo, then, is it?" The former asked, "Well, other than that, I have no problem."

"Shampoo and Ukyou will follow orders," Ranma stated with finality. "They may have their differences, but it won't get in the way any more than my putting up with P-chan here."

"Or my dealing with Ranko."

The two officers gave one another a narrow glare and shrugged.

"Plenty of time to fight later, once the missions done," the older Hibiki concluded, "If there are no other questions, we'll review one last time, and I'll leave you to brief your teams with the specifics. We'll set out as soon as Cyborg and Ukyou finish clearing the last of the debris outside."

For some strange reason, after watching that display, the young Hibiki dropped his head into his hands.

"I'm so doomed..."

---

The way Cyborg described it; she was probably the first 'Green Lantern' who didn't like to fly.

The very notion of being able to "fly" simply by wanting it, rather than by at least using powered armor or another mechanism, was a lot to wrap one's head around. It had been hard just getting the allegedly "built in" environmental failsafes in the ring to work to the point where Ranma and Ryouga were willing to let her outside.

The officers had insisted on a thirty minute trial run in the airlock, first in her armor and with the ring, and then without the armor. It had given her time to practice and refine the skin-tight environmental seal field the power ring could produce under more controlled conditions. As she was going to be out in another mission later, Raven had been likewise suited up in Ukyou's armor and brought into the airlock, so the two could practice covering themselves and others in small protective bubbles in case of an emergency – though Ukyou preferred simple boxes that were, for her, easier to visualize and conceptualize.

Only once the concept had been proven and repeated and sustained under those conditions was she allowed outside with Cyborg. Raven had also been given permission to leave the ship, but mostly so she could get used to being in her borrowed personal armor. Ranma was the only other one outside, her lieutenant present in case of an emergency that would require spare breathers and a speedy return to the ship.

Raven quickly got the hang of levitating in the armor, but Ukyou preferred to walk.

It was disconcerting to be so exposed in hard vacuum. Comfortable reliance on technology was nothing new; reliance on this ring and its unusual power would take some time. As if sensing her disquiet with it, the power ring sent reciprocal pulses of warmth and encouragement into her aura, helping her feel more at ease, and encouraging her to be more adventurous with it. Sometimes this was a subtle pull, other times it was a more forceful push. The ring seemed almost eager to have a new owner and to be put to work. It wanted, so badly, to serve its masters and to do good.

Seeing Raven float by, Ukyou closed her eyes and thought about doing the same. Her feet, shielded by a faint energy field as they were, left the ground to glide over some of the previously demolished debris underfoot. It wasn't like flying was hard, even – the ring did all the work translating thought into action – it was all deceptively easy! At the same time, it was also strange. Her martial art, unlike Anything Goes, was reliant on proper body grounding. She was like Ryouga in that respect.

Lowering back down, she instead worked on using her Akichi. Her battle aura wouldn't, and apparently couldn't, manifest normally while she wore the ring. Techniques would have to be adapted or even partly relearned. Unfortunately, the ring didn't seem to provide any easy or obvious speed or strength boosts, though she knew they had to exist. If nothing else, she was sure she could "will" herself, and the energy field around her, to mimic super strength and speed. It only took a few tries to get a linear step to work with the field covering her feet but it was, if anything, a little slower than when she had been able to use her aura without complication.

'Some things will be easier. Some will probably be harder. And a lot of stuff will be new.'

Practice was the answer.

Through practice and training, anything could be accomplished.

The ring on her finger purred as they approached the collapsed-in section of the tunnel that needed to be cleared. Ukyou could almost feel what it wanted her to order it to do: blast the rubble! Scoop it up! Make a sled and push it away! Making a big hand and rip it up! Finally feeling a tad annoyed, Ukyou asserted her own will, and ordered it to wait and settle down. 'We'll start once Cyborg finishes his explanation.' The green ring submitted, but the assertive nature of her thoughts only made it simmer with excitable, eager energy.

'The ring is a tool. One we have designed to be welded by those strong of will. Do not doubt. Do not know fear. You have been chosen by the ring, thus you are capable of using it.'

They were words of encouragement… sort of.

Ukyou was determined to live up to them in the spirit of how she assumed they were given. She was even more determined not to let down Ranma, or even Ryouga, both of whom had given her this opportunity. They were her commanding officers and her friends. She would show them what she could do!

"Alright," Cyborg finished, stepping well away from the collapsed wreckage. He studied the debris dispassionately for another second before turning to glance at her. "I guess that's it. Time to see what that ring is capable of."

Looking over her shoulder at Ranma and Raven, both of whom were waiting, Ukyou focused on the starship remnants and warped debris ahead of her – the stuff that had nearly killed Ryouga and Jinx, and that now blocked Pathfinder's escape. Raising her hand, power ring on her right ring finger, she plotted out what to did – visualizing it – just like she would with a martial arts technique.

'There,' she thought, with her minds eye, and a laser thin green light shot out. 'There. There. There. There!'

Just like okonomiyaki.

'There! There! There! There!'

She would package it.

Right angles formed around and inside the hill-sized mass, connecting to others in a rapidly expanding pattern. Enclosed areas glowed with a fierce green light as lines grew into walls and then into planes. Square shapes, packages, cut into the rubble, and provided a platform for more of them to take root. She spoke the words that first came to mind, knowing they'd be heard by the tiny microphone pressed up against her lower jaw.

"Ao: Assai Bento."
(Green Light: Crushing Bento Box)

At her command, the first of the boxes to form began to compact, crushing everything within. The planes of light intersected as they shrunk forcefully into one another, and at about half the original volume, the perpendicular green walls folded over and in forming decorative lines. One after another, the featureless six sided geometric shapes took on the form of giant delivery boxes, falling to the ground. Each was packed with compressed matter and completely encapsulated.

'That's it. And now…!'

Concentrating hard, Ukyou's fist tightened, and the boxes began to arrange themselves into a neat pile for later removal and transport.

---

From a safe distance away, Cyborg watched the unorthodox display of power with a clinical eye. His internal sensor suite carefully tracked every aspect of the undertaking and broke down the raw data for his examination and interpretation. The structural integrity of the tunnel, the vibrations caused when some of the large pieces of metal slammed heavily to the ground after being somewhat clumsily sheared off by the ring's power, biometrics on Ukyou, energy output of the ring, and a dozen other things beside.

"Azar help me... she actually named her 'attack'," Raven muttered under her breath, but not quite silent enough to escape the microphone in her helmet.

Despite his cold calculations, Cyborg couldn't help but chuckle at her reference to the unusual idiosyncratic tendency that so beset the Nerimian martial artists. It was one thing to hear Ryouga shout the name of one of his esoteric martial arts techniques, but to hear Ukyou call out an attack name for even the most basic of applications of her power ring? It was amusing, to say the least. Would she shout out a different name for every single thing she thought up?

'Green Light: Boxing Glove! Green Light; Ultra Hyper Attack Stopping Barrier! Green Light: Action Power Toe Nail Clippers of Doom!'

Yeah, the potential there was pretty much limitless. Everyone had seen John Stewart trap various Legion of Doom types in a green bubble. Ukyou's move seemed the same on the surface, but Cyborg could see the difference with his cybernetic eye. She wasn't visualizing boxes at first: she was visualizing six intersecting planes, and using pure force to push the paper thin 'sheets' through the metal. It was probably a crude application of the ring, but it worked in a purely utilitarian way. Folding and then compacting the result was fine for debris, perfect even, but it sure wasn't something he wanted to see applied to anything living.

Still, the Ukyou he knew (both of them) was a quick learner – so hopefully she'd get past these 'baby steps' soon, and then they could carve out the last of the molehole. They had already wasted way too much time that could have otherwise been spent out here, working. If Ukyou wanted to get them back on schedule, she was going to have to do a lot better than boxing up a few cubic meters of metal at a time.

A tap on his shoulder distracted him from his number crunching. Turning around, he found himself quite surprised to see who had just diverted his attention. Her armor was immediately recognizable – as he'd designed and built some of it from the ground up – even through the rather substantial beating it had taken. About the only part of Jinx's suit that he hadn't custom made, and Cyborg wept internally at the overhaul that would be necessary to bring it back up to snuff, was the gauntlet that they'd been forced to replace completely after she had... detonated the last one with that new trick of hers.

He was about to greet her, as well as ask her what she was doing out there, when the slim girl gestured for him to follow her back a bit. It didn't take too much to guess why she wanted that, as both Ranma and Raven were relatively close by, though closer to the emerald lighted demolition. Curious, he nodded and followed her back a few more yards away from the spectacle, though he really wondered if it was necessary, considering how intently the pigtailed boy and the violet haired Titan were watching Ukyou.

Once they were far enough back for Jinx's comfort, she fired him a wide grin through her visor and gave him a not so gentle rap on the arm.

"How's it going, Tin Man?" Interestingly, Cyborg noted that the sorceress had addressed him via a direct channel. It meant that the only people that could hear her talk was himself and, of course, Nabiki. Obviously she didn't feel like drawing anyone else's attention to her appearance outside of the ship.

Rather than address the topic directly, he decided to play along. Lord knew that the girl had had a rough enough time of things lately. "Could be worse, Dorothy. The Emerald Wizard over there is tidying things up nicely, but she's gonna have to start picking up the pace, soon."

Nodding, Jinx looked around his broad frame. He heard an annoyed grunt from her, then she punched him in the side for good measure. "Hey, I want a better view. Gimme a lift already!"

Grinning, endlessly amused by her polite way of asking for help, he knelt down a bit. It was more a gesture than anything else, as she leapt up to sit on his shoulder with ease and planted her elbow on the crown of his head to hold her balance. He'd seen her leap over twice his height easily in the past, and that was before she'd vanished on that whirlwind tour of the States with Happosai. Still, he couldn't help but feel good about the turn of events, as it seemed to indicate some form of bonding between the two of them. Normally, she hardly even acknowledged his existence, but now she was actually hanging out with him intentionally.

"So, if I'm Dorothy, and you're the Tin Man, then that must make Raven the Wicked Witch," Jinx added, shifting about a bit to find a more comfortable perch on his shoulder.

"Just as long as you don't accuse Starfire of being the Scarecrow, or Ryouga of being the Cowardly Lion. I doubt either of them would appreciate the comparison."

"Heh, oh really?" she drawled, tapping a lazy finger against his visor. "Funny that you should be the one to think of those analogues first then, isn't it?"

"Hey, now, none of that!" he fired back. "I think the more interesting question is: Just what the heck you're doing out here, again?"

Sure, he hadn't wanted to address the topic, but she'd kind of pushed him into a corner there. Topic shifting was the only way to go. Luckily, the young woman didn't seem too offended by the direct inquiry; he could feel her shift slightly, likely shrugging her shoulders.

"Didn't take much. I just sat down besides Nabiki and told her I'd keep saying 'Are we there yet', in a really high pitched voice, until she agreed that I was okay enough to come outside and help out a little bit."

"Really?" he asked, more than slightly surprised. "That actually worked on Nabiki? I thought she would have at least charged you an admission fee to watch the 'Magnificent Ukyou' at work."

"Yeah, I kind of thought that too," she agreed, leaning more of her weight on his skull as she absently watched Ukyou at work. "In fact, she caved like nothing. Heck, it was like she was eager to get me out of there. Gave me 'permission' to come outside in a real 'you can go get hit by a bus playing in traffic, for all I care' kinda way. I've gotten more courtesy from Shampoo in the middle of cat fight."

Had he not been prepped for hard vacuum, and had the propensity for wearing shirts even when he wasn't, the titanium Titan would have tugged nervously at his collar. "Ummm... you do know that Nabiki can hear everything we're saying, right?"

A loud, dismissive scoff was her reply. "Considering what Ryouga informed me about what happened while I was out, Nabiki is fully welcome to come out here and bite me if she doesn't like it." At that, Jinx leaned over his helmet until she was looking him nearly face to face. "Did you hear that Nabiki and Ukyou actually blame me for the Major getting a little cooked while we were doing that stupid trick of his? Like it wasn't his idea in the first place, or that I didn't warn him that it was a lousy idea."

He was about to lift a hand to make a counterpoint-

"And that's not even the worse part," she barked. "How is it that no one on this ship, excepting my actual teammates, even batted an eye at the fact that I got hurt, too? What kind of crazy, backwards world is this, where the walking tank gets babied and the gorgeous and alluring damsel in distress gets ignored? It just ain't natural, I tell ya."

Cyborg had to laugh at that, and took it as a small sign that she wasn't actually taking it as personally as she was claiming to. Honestly, Jinx seemed to care about others' opinions on her about as much as he cared about listening to Raven's lengthy retellings of the latest anthropological documentary she'd just watched. It was a good sign, as he knew that most people in her place would probably start buckling under the constant scrutiny before too long. On the other hand, though, it did cause a small spike of guilt to stab through him.

"About that..." he started awkwardly. "I'm sorry about that, Jinx. I totally let you down there."

She stared at him blankly. "Ummm, what? Did you somehow organize for the entire crew of the ship to become heartless jerks with no appreciation for a great pair of legs?"

It was probably unnecessary for her to lift her legs out in front of her to make her point, considering they were clad with armor, but he still appreciated the view. Something about a girl plated in exotic alloys always got his motor revving.

"Not that," he replied quickly. "It's just that I promised that I wouldn't let anything to happen to you... and look at what happened to you. I screwed up pretty huge there."

"What are you talking about?" she asked curiously. "I didn't explode into a fine mist, so I think you did okay. I mean, sure, I passed out a bit, but no real harm done, right?"

That brought the cybernetic teen up short. He could only stare at her incredulously for a moment. Finally, he said the first thing that occurred to him. "What? You – you mean that Ryouga didn't tell you? That nobody told you what actually happened? You think you just over exerted yourself?"

Immediately, he wished he hadn't said it. There was likely a reason that no one had mentioned her brush with death to her. Doubtlessly, Ryo just hadn't wanted to panic her, or just couldn't bear to tell her, but the higher ups probably just wanted to avoid a potentially volatile situation they'd inadvertently had a hand in creating. Granted, he hadn't actually been there when it happened, but he'd never heard of such a uniformly cold and uncaring reaction to a teammate nearly, or in this case actually dying before. While Jinx might have been annoyed that they didn't care when she thought she'd just been a bit tuckered out, what would she think when she realized that no one even batted an eye when her heart had stopped?

"Well... yeah, pretty much." She eyed him suspiciously. "Why? What are you talking about? Did something else happen? I mean, I already know that Raven and our boss molested me a bit to wake me up, but that's about it."

Desperately grasping at straws, he instantly began to laugh and nodded frantically. "Oh, yeah, so you already do know about that... I wasn't sure that you did... Pretty crazy, yeah?"

The slim sorceress rolled her eyes with extreme prejudice. "Sheesh, is that all you were talking about? I thought someone died, the way you were going on. Anyway, it's not that big a deal. Trust me, I already taught Raven a lesson that she won't soon forget. I let Boss man off the hook for now, though. He's just so hopeless, y'know? It's kind of hard to stay mad at him too long for some reason."

"You do know that they were helping you, right?" he asked. "Most people don't have 'revenge' as their first go-to when it comes to gratitude. You sure you don't want to reconsider? Maybe give the Lost Boy a wee peck on the cheek, or something? He did go above and beyond, and Raven right along with him."

"Whatever." She waved a hand dismissively. "Raven only helped me out cuz she wants to get into our illustrious leader's pants-"

It took all of Cyborg's will power to prevent himself from exploding into laughter and likely dumping the sorceress on her butt in the process.

"Though why she hasn't had any luck, I'll never know. I'm pretty sure the guy ain't gay. And as for him, well, it's kind of hard to feel all special when you know a guy is only helping you because he's been mentally reprogrammed to worship you. Honestly, the only guy on this boat that doesn't treat me like an alien is you."

He frowned at her comment, even though it paid him a vague compliment. "I'm not sure that's fair, Jinx. Ryouga would have done what he did for any one of us, not because he's programmed to, just because it's the kind of guy he is. I don't think you should dismiss him just like that. He's really got it bad for you..."

For just a second, it looked like she was considering his words –

"Ugh, can we just drop it, already?" But apparently not. "Knowing that he'd have helped anyone else the same way makes me feel even less special. Besides, it's practically his job to do that kind of stuff. Look, can we just watch the sideshow, already?"

For a few long moments, he felt the desire to keep the argument alive. There were probably a dozen other good reasons for having his team mates get along better that he could think of right off the top of his head, but, honestly, it all came down to one simple thing. Ryouga was his buddy, and Cyborg could tell that, as well as he was holding things together, this latest tragedy in a growing string of tragedies was really starting to eat away at him. Even for a perpetual doom and gloomer like Hibiki, the human heart could only take so much.

Just another reason that everyone should upgrade to cybernetics, just like him.

"If there's one thing that I just can not stand, it's watching a total newb playing with their powers."

The sudden, and out of left field comment, prompted Cyborg to lift his head and glance at his diminutive passenger. "Huh? What are ya talking about? Green Lantern Ukyou not up to your standards?"

Waving her hand before her dismissively, Jinx snorted loudly. "Oh, please. We used to get punks like this coming through the Academy all the time. Either they just stole their first battle suit, or were just recently mutated in toxic waste, or some other kind of freak accident. Anyway, long story short, every couple weeks, we'd be subjected to some total newbie coming in and showing off whatever 'amazing' power they had, as if they were hot shit, or something."

Jinx lifted her arm, gesturing to the distant, emerald girl. "Just look at her. She's 'packaging' the debris for delivery? And she's flying like she chugged a six pack of beer, first."

"Oh, come on," he chided, "Ya gotta walk before ya crawl. You know that. Ain't one of us out here that didn't have to figure out how to use our powers properly off the start."

"Well, yeah," Jinx conceded peevishly, "But putting everything else on hold while she practices? Heck, put Raven to work, too! Not only would she be about a jillion times more efficient, but she'd actually do it with style, to boot. She's had it too easy lounging around the ship all the time anyway."

It was Cyborg's turn to roll his eyes. "That's an awful lot of respect, considering how much you hate Raven."

"Pshaw, whatever," she bit back hotly. "She's just a ghetto bootied thorn in my side. It's not like she's even worth hating. I can at least give her props for not being a complete novice when it comes to being meta. Not to mention the fact that she tastes pretty good, all things considered."

At that, Cyborg nearly did collapse. Before his mind had the time to compile just exactly what Jinx could have possibly meant by that, the sorceress slipped off his shoulder and dropped to the ground in front of him. "Look, whatever. I know that Hibiki and Ranma don't really trust Raven, and I don't even blame them for that after what happened back in her hometown. If they don't want her tearing the place a new one, then I'm fine with that. Still, that doesn't mean that I can't go out there and show up Miss Lantern."

Cyborg cocked an eyebrow. "You really think you can show up a Green lantern?"

Jinx held up a hand and began to chuckle malevolently... only to notice the fresh new gauntlet that adorned said hand. Instantly, realization settled over her face and her wicked chuckle dissolved into a nervous giggle. "Ummm, actually... maybe I'll start off a bit slower? Maybe just pick up where I left off with the small stuff?"

He nodded sagely. "Not a bad idea, little lady. We don't exactly have a warehouse full of spare gloves for you to explode trying to out do one of the most iconic powers we know of. Besides, I think more people than just you and me would get in trouble if I let you knock yourself out trying to go full out so soon after you... after you passed out back there."

Gesturing to a not too distant pile of scrap, he said, "Why don't ya start over there, where I can keep an eye on you while I monitor Ukyou? I know you want to prove you're not out for the count, but no need to kill yourself to prove how much better you are, right?"

She nodded even as she waved off his concern with a roll of her wrist. "Yeah, yeah. Big Brother is watching, and all that crap. I'll behave myself."

With that, she wandered towards the designated work site and began to limber herself up, obviously preparing to get to work again. Nodding to himself in satisfaction, he turned his attention more fully back to Ukyou. Her progress was steady, and he was pretty confident it would increase as she got more comfortable with the ring. His main concern wasn't how quickly she worked, though, but her power output. No one had thought to mention it, yet, but while GL rings were supposedly limitlessly powerful, that did not mean that they had unlimited power.

He hadn't had a chance to check whether any of the Lanterns they had collected actually held a charge or not. Add to that, the fact that he had no idea when Ukyou's ring had last been charged up, or even how long a Green Lantern ring would hold a charge when fully powered... he was quite worried that her powers could fail her at any instant. All he could hope to do was note any fluctuation in her power output and warn Ranma quickly enough to get a breather to her, and then get her back to the ship as quickly as possible.

He preferred to be optimistic, though. If they were lucky, power wouldn't even be an issue. There wasn't too much trash left to move, just a few hundred metric tons was all. As long as her ring held out for that long, that would be all they needed.

Once they freed the ship, they would be as good as home.

It was all just a matter of time.

---

"…and that's the tactical situation on the ground," Ryu finished, making a few last second notes down on the mission touchpads both he and Starfire had to review. He dotted down on the area between the insertion point and the main body of the Thanagarian ship. "Of course, we'll be getting some updated info once we've got an eye in the sky, so to speak. But... if things pan out below like they are up top, this should be a walk in the park. Any questions about ROE or anything else?"

The Tamaranian shook her head. "None. I have already read all of the pertinent material concerning your 'standard operating procedures' in extra-atmospheric operations."

"In that case we should be good 'till the supplementary intel comes down the pipeline," he craned his neck and leisurely rubbed his neck. "You know…" he began.

"What?" Starfire inquired, sounding suspicious.

"We've got some time to kill before we put boots on the ground," Ryu reminded her with a friendly smirk, tucking his pad comfortably under his arm. "I was thinking of rounding up Kuno and Konatsu, maybe Mousse and Shampoo, too… see if we can get a game of cards going, or Chinchirorin. Try and lighten people's moods, you know? You ever play four-five-six or other dice games?"

Not even looking up from her pad, Starfire shook her head sharply. Instead, she began to scroll through the information again.

"I am uninterested in learning your human whimsies. I must endeavor to consider all possible complications which may arise on this mission. I am well aware how defenseless you become when introduced to the harsh conditions of vacuum and sub optimal gravity. I must be prepared to compensate for any inevitable short comings."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, that was kind of harsh." He shrugged instead of let it irritate him. "But I can't fault you for being over prepared. It shouldn't be hard to find me if you change your mind."

She shrugged. "That seems unlikely. If you require my expertise, you will know where to locate me."

Watching her get up and float away, Ryu repressed a sigh.

'So much for that.'

---

The gravity induction bubble extended, doubled, and cleanly cleared the walls of the neatly excised, oval-shaped tunnel. After days of confinement, Pathfinder shot through the meager couple hundred meters of formerly debris-strewn molehole in all of three seconds, exiting at what passed for extremely low speed. The work of hours upon hours sped by faster than the eye could see.

On the surface, the saucer shaped craft emerged smoothly from a clean hole in the battered outer layer of the hulk, leaving behind only a few bits of technology in the form of navigation beacons. The silver disk left its confines without fanfare or great production. For this occasion, the windows along the sides of the ship had been opened, and the crew had gathered at the portals to watch (and cheer) as black and metal prison transformed into the hellish but blessedly different neon nightmare that painted the inner hollow of the hulk with violets and reds. As twisted as it was, it was a form of freedom.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Ranma announced on the ship's intercom as they took up a designated position. "We have left the building."

"Actually," Cyborg cut in, staring out the window, grin on his face. "We just 'entered' the building. We kinda got ourselves a Dyson Sphere thing going on, and we're on the inside now. I gotta admit, this is really neat."

"Ah, Cyborg, you and your… OH HELL!"

A sudden curse cut off whatever else Ranma was about to say. No one felt it, but those at the viewports could see the ship suddenly MOVE, fast and hard. An already blurry panorama became a spray of colors and sparks as Pathfinder rotated and accelerated, then a frozen picture as it stopped on a dime, and then another blur as it shot off again.

A brilliant bright flash turned, for just an instant, even that view a solid white.

"Status!" Ryouga barked, heading for the secondary nav.

"We're being fired at!" Nabiki yelled, fingers dancing at the projected keys of her workstation. "Three vectors. Nuclear warheads detected and incoming!"

"The windows!"

"On it!" The transparent alien alloy shifted, tinting to block a potentially blinding blast of light.

A second later, two more quick flashes dully colored and reflected on the tinted ports, longer than the very brief blast from before. The ship stopped for a moment, and a thin white beam arced across the darkened viewport. There were no theatric sounds of explosions or buzzing of beams. Even near misses couldn't be felt or perceived, except only briefly, from the passing flash of light outside.

"I can't keep this up!" Ranma yelled. "Permission to counter-battery at all angles!"

Moments from also entering the secondary psionic nav, Ryouga flinched at the frantic question. Everyone knew Ranma was not the type to panic easily. How bad was the situation outside? Everything was happening too fast to deal with outside the nav. There was no time to think.

He glanced over his shoulder at the others present in the command room at that moment. Cyborg was also moving quickly towards the displays around Nabiki's station, and Raven – still in Ukyou's armor – looked like she also regretted being out of the loop. The loop being the nav and the ship's eyes and ears. The others in the rest of the ship had to be pressed against the tinted windows, wondering what the Hell was happening.

Wondering if, at any millisecond, they would be reduced to atoms.

'All because we got free? Why? Why are we suddenly being fired at?'

"Ranma," he finally gave the order. "Destroy them."

He entered the psionic navigation system in time to feel the last of Ranma's maneuvers and finally get a good eye on what had been happening just seconds before. Inside the kaleidoscopic view of the insane sphere that was horizon and sky and ground in one, the pigtailed pilot had already located the sources of attacks. He had also highlighted the incoming attacks still to be dealt with.

In the nav, it was, for a moment, like a still picture.

Missiles. Old. Half of them misfired from their launchers, but they were being launched in cluster batteries of about six. The computer was able to read which ones were decoys and which held still functional nuclear warheads, each in the twelve kiloton range, just a percentage or two weaker than the bomb that wiped out Hiroshima. They were weaker but similar to the nuclear warheads XCOM still deployed, from time to time. Pathfinder was not designed for very heavy combat; unlike an Avenger or even a Firestorm. Luckily, Ranma was doing a good job of moving the ship around and spoofing the missiles.

The other problem arose in the form of a crashed ship's undamaged guns, firing wildly and saturating the air with a mix of nasty looking energy weapons. There, too, the ship had already identified the enemy: lasers with a visible tracer component and low yield pulsed particle beams. The ancient ship, half ruined, was nonetheless peppering everything nearby in a mad frenzy ignited by the appearance of an active ship within sensor range.

The third threat was actually moving along the surface. A large body of von Neumann machines, as Cyborg had called them, were spraying out plumes of micro-machine probes, identified by the computer as 'incoming.' They looked like dandruff or even pollen, shed by clusters of dark mushrooms on the surface. Nearby rubble indicated the possibility that these probes had lain in wait under the surface until a promising target got close.

"Executing," Ranma's single thought filled the computer's commands. "Executing."

Pathfinder juked to the side, firing first on the crashed ship. Twin lances of green, existing for a fraction of a second, moved from the surface of Pathfinder's hull to take seed on the surface of the derelict. Energy dumped instantly into armored plating and weapons turrets, turning house-sized masses into ionized gas as anti-matter annihilated within the green plasma beam.

Shockwaves and expanding matter, pressing away from the initial point of contact and removing anything in its path, molecular bonds be damned, sheared away great swaths of the enemy ship. Red and orange drops of molten material peeled away like drops of blood from a cut, the car sized ingots of liquid metal filling space like high speed rain.

The plasma cannons onboard Pathfinder queued up as recharging.

On target, the enemy ship, far larger than the small flying saucer, lay gutted twice over. Most of it was flattened out against the hulk around it, scrubbed out by an ionic abrasive until it became a pair of ragged, messy craters large enough to bury a row of houses. Whatever power had been feeding the ship's guns on board the derelict then exploded outwards in a brilliant flash of light and inaudible fury.

Six seconds until the next shot.

Ranma brought Pathfinder down, low, to near the surface. The enemy missiles tracked down, vectoring after their prey. They were fast: almost mach 9 by that time, but not nearly as maneuverable as the inertialess UFO. More earth flattening explosions trailed along as the warheads proximity detonated with the ground: airbursts meant to do the maximum damage to a target, peppering it with plasmatic debris. Inside the nav, the six seconds between shots seemed to last an eternity, as Ranma piloted the ship close enough over the ground for the gravity bubble to shear off long, thin trails of static charged fire that sparkled in their wake.

Around in an arc, Pathfinder blasted straight up again, twisting upside down as it did so.

Red rectangles highlighted two points on the global view. Freshly charged just a half second before, Pathfinder's cannons roared once more; this time, instead of a single target, each of the remaining threats received a single specific citation.

The missile racks below, recessed behind shifting protective plates, were caught unleashing another barrage. Safeties in the nuclear warheads - proving that aliens and humans could think alike - did not trigger a secondary explosion. Instead, the launchers were reduced to blistered slag and the missiles blown to scraps as the fuel within became part of the nuclear conflagration. The plasma beam there dwelled and moved for a quarter second, carving out a glowing trench wide enough to swallow an apartment building.

At the same time, the other beam burned through a small cloud of micromachine probes, continuing on to burst above one of the von Neumann spawning towers. Far more fragile than the armored ships that were the other targets, the machine structure flew apart like a broken glass full of water. The outer shell shattered and the inner components, more liquid than solid, were reduced to a molten river and expanding gas cloud.

Spinning, searching for more targets Ranma adjusted position, and the ship entered a pre-programmed 'zig zag' so characteristic of the UFOs XCOM faced. One pattern became another random one, and when the cannons warmed up, Ranma fired them again, utterly destroying the missile platform, and burning more of the von Neumann probes out of the irradiated sky.

The other threats eliminated, the ship's pilot then concentrated on the remaining enemy. The machine probes were swarming towards the ship; Pathfinder had an ally in distance, but an enemy in numbers. Switching to low powered shots, the cannons cycled at one shot per second, and Ranma created a barrage of its own. Tiny nuclear blasts salted the space in which the machines attempted to swarm or approach, devastating them. The second cannon switched to full power, and responded with full force on the ground, melting long stretches of machine infested terrain.

Finally, the towers retracted back into their holes, like worms away from the burning sun.

Still, Pathfinder fired, turning the entire region into a molten, radioactive lake.

Ryouga could feel the psionic nav and the responses within it tainted by adrenalin, the completely analytical and dispassionate mind of the aliens that had designed it far removed from the human norm. Sensor reads shot from point to point, frantically, almost eagerly, looking for another enemy to burn to atoms. Long eternal seconds passed, and finding none, Ranma fired again into the glowing amber lake that had been a threat just a quarter minute before.

"Ranma."

Targeting reticules searched frantically, hungrily, for something to destroy.

"Saotome!"

"Y…Yeah. Okay, yeah." Ranma's thoughts were a battle high only coming down with difficulty. "Targets destroyed. Airspace secure. For now."

"Damage looks minor," Ryouga observed. "Missions are still go."

"You sure you want to take over as pilot while I go off with Unit-Blue?" The thoughts of the pigtailed Saotome were clear: he didn't think anyone else could've handled the sudden firefight.

"Ranma. I can't lead a team. It's taking all I have just to move."

"I know. But…"

"Deploy the sensor modules. With the Susan gone, they're the only remote sensors we have."

"Won't take long. Computer's got some points that are semi-stable. I'll keep an eye out for any other surprises and get us in position."

"Good. I'll be back then."

The conversation, taking a second in all, was soon followed by Ryouga removing himself from the Nav. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he felt his wounds, old and new, come back to greet him like the bosom buddies they were. Compared to his body at the moment, setting up camp inside the computer would be a relief. Turning the chair around, he let out a breath and rested his arms.

"We have control of this airspace." His eyes narrowed as he spoke, a pre-set comm also sending it to the rest of the ship. "Insertion at Whiskey-Red and Whiskey-Blue will continue as scheduled. LZ is to be considered hostile. Prepare yourselves as appropriate."

---

"There's a problem with Yankee Squad."

Ryouga had been expecting to hear that, so when Nabiki said it, he didn't show any surprise or shock at the would-be revelation. It seemed like there was always something wrong with Yankee, like a perpetual thorn in his side. His eyes fluttered and he fought back the exhaustion that wracked his body. Correcting his breathing, he reinforced the façade of being unhindered and in charge. Ranma knew the truth, perhaps one other did, too... but no one else. He would keep it that way.

"I know," he replied still seated in the auxiliary navigator's chair.

"They've been whispering among themselves," Nabiki said, standing to his side with her hands angrily on her hips. "No one was supposed to know about Jinx's condition, but – and here's the big surprise – your little brother couldn't keep his mouth shut, or his sense of impartiality, and now they're all muttering about how no one cares about any of them."

"I know."

"You know?" she asked, leaning in closer and sounding unusually critical. "What are you going to do about it?"

"There's very little I can do," he admitted with some bitterness. "They'll follow orders. Who cares what they say?"

"You should shut them up."

He blinked at her, surprised, and watched as she disappeared behind him. "What? I…"

"Commander Yasuda wouldn't put up with their poor discipline," she continued, this time out of sight. "It's all because of your 'little brother.' He and Ryu are the only NCOs left, and they're supposed to be keeping the crew together. But instead of doing his job, the brat is sowing dissent. You should censure him. You should deal with him."

The acting Major frowned as, for a moment, he considered it.

"If you don't show them you're in charge, Ryouga-kun…" Nabiki's hands dug into his shoulders. "They'll tear you apart."

"Ryouga-baby," an identical voice cut in. "There's a problem with Yankee Squad."

Ryouga blinked, and the feel of nails digging in skin vanished. Nabiki was standing to the side again, her hands on her hips. There was… a problem with Yankee Squad?

Yes. That was right. He'd been expecting that. It seemed like there was always something wrong with Yankee, like a perpetual thorn in his side. His eyes fluttered and he fought back the exhaustion that wracked his body. Huffing angrily, he reached up to touch his shoulders, feeling for the marks there. Ranma knew the truth, the real truth, perhaps one other did, too... but no one else. He would keep it that way.

The chain of command… had to be maintained…

"Ryouga baby?" she asked again, brown eyes narrowing at him.

"I know," he replied still seated in the auxiliary navigator's chair.

"They've been whispering among themselves," Nabiki said, giving a wary sigh as she looked up at the ceiling. "Most of it is the usual stuff with Starfire, but now we've got this Jinx thing, too. They're pulling away from the rest of us. Becoming paranoid. That's true for all of us, I guess," she admitted. "But Yankee is the only group that's potentially polarizing."

"They weren't supposed to be chatting about Jinx in the first place," he reminded her. "The sergeant is supposed to be keeping his team integrated. Spreading rumors about how no one gives a shit about his team is directly counter to his orders and his responsibilities." The officer ground his teeth together the more he thought about it. "I should…"

Nabiki drew back a bit at the tone of voice he was using, and he groaned.

"I should… calm down…" he finished, reaching up to massage his temples. "I'll have to think of something. Just keep watching them."

"I'm watching everyone," Nabiki said, and amazingly, it didn't sound like she enjoyed the job. "You included, Ryouga-baby."

"What does that-?"

"How badly are you actually hurt?" she asked, looking away from him at the door. They were alone in the command room… for now. The only other presence was Ranma, and he didn't count. He knew all this already.

"I'm not…"

The Tendo sister turned her eyes on him again, this time her stare was clearly disapproving.

"Just tell me," she demanded.

"It feels like frostbite. Across my body…. in my lungs." He cleared his throat with a wet growl. "It isn't pleasant, but I can handle it."

"You should have Raven…"

"Raven has a mission, and I want her focused on it," he cut her off. "And after what I saw with Jinx, I'm not going to push her to the point where something in her breaks." Unconsciously, his left hand reached up to rub the scar on his right arm. "I can deal with it. I've fought through worse."

'They'd tear me apart if they knew the truth.'

'That's right, Ryouga-kun,'Cologne's gift seemed to mockingly agree. 'Without strength, everything falls apart. Without strength... you're useless.'

"But," she pressed.

"Drop it," he snuffed the topic with his coldest tone.

"I can't," the mercenary girl insisted, and suddenly reached out to grab his left arm, still cracked and weathered by the combined attack earlier. Despite being far from the strongest woman on the ship, her strength was enough to make him visibly wince. A hiss shot out from his clenched teeth.

"I'm watching everyone," she repeated. "And that means I'm watching you. You explicitly told me to. I can't just drop it."

He scowled, and reached over to remove her hand.

"Sir," she said, and the rarely used formality gave him a moment's pause. Looking up, he saw her watching him – the look on her face telling him right off the bat that she wouldn't put up with or accept a rebuff. "Tell me the truth."

"I'm… having some trouble fixing the internal damage," he finally admitted. "My movement is impaired, too. I said I'll deal with it. The mission comes first. Getting this ship home comes first. That's all there is to it."

It took a second or two, but she let go of his arm on her own accord.

"Yankee," he reminded her. "You mentioned them. I know about it. Raven told me."

Nabiki lowered her eyes at that, also knowing it. "You're relying pretty heavily on her, considering what happened just a few days ago."

"She's been keeping… relatively level headed," he tried to explain. "I need someone to step in… in case I pull him off active duty."

'Him' of course, being the younger Hibiki.

"That makes sense," Nabiki agreed, walking around to slip behind him. For a moment, he wondered if this Nabiki was… like the last one? Would she disappear, too? Was she even real?

"This mission will decide how much I can invest in her," he continued, and closed his eyes, expecting to feel her hands on his shoulders, nails digging in.

"And what about Jinx?" she asked from behind.

"What about Jinx?" he answered the question with one of his own. "Do you have something in mind? You let her out before."

"If she has the energy to annoy me, she has the energy to get to work," Nabiki explained, and instead of claw his shoulder, her hand ran playfully through his hair. His eyes opened.

So: she was real then.

'Probably.'

"Mousse," Ranma said, just then, over the ship's comm.. A few seconds later, and the robed martial artist entered the CR, half dressed in his personal armor, a petrified look on his face. Shakily adjusting his glasses, he took in a deep, slow breath and stood at attention.

"Hibiki. Saotome." He chewed on the next few words carefully. "I… I think I need to be taken off duty."

---

"You know, while you're gone… I'm going to kill someone."

The statement, uttered completely out of the blue, snapped Mousse's attention from cleaning part of his still disassembled personal armor. The voice had, undoubtedly, been Konatsu's, and the actual statement had been made with such complete and casual ease that it took a few seconds for it to really register. Baffled, the weapons master turned to Ryu, who was nearby suiting up in his MARS armor.

The sergeant didn't seem to register the comment in full.

"You have anything specific in mind?' he asked, cleaning the inside of the powered armor helmet with a clean anti-static cloth. "Or… what?"

"One or two things," Konatsu replied. The ninja was still ragged looking, but he and Kuno had both shown up to see off their gambling buddies and comrades after a couple rounds of cards and dice. Both were sitting in fold-outs extending from the ship's wall nearby.

"What are you…?" Mousse finally tried to ask. "What did you just say!"

"Who I should kill and how," Konatsu replied, staring up through matted brown hair. "I was thinking Shampoo. Who would you kill if you had the chance?"

"You…" Words failed the Chinese martial artist for all of a second and a half. "What the hell are you saying! If you touch a hair on Shampoo's head…!"

Taking a forceful step towards the insane kunoichi, Mousse came up abruptly and unexpectedly short as Ryu caught him by the shoulder. The unanticipated action and the Kumon heir's own substantial strength were enough to force Mousse back two steps until his back was to the wall. Glasses ratted but still in place, Mousse could only gawk at the fact that everyone was staring at him for the outburst while ignoring the actual threats just uttered seconds before.

"Mousse! What the hell, man!" Ryu let go of his shoulder, but took a step to get between them. "What's gotten into you?"

He glared at the sergeant. "You didn't…? What did…?" Mousse then pointed at Konatsu. "Didn't you hear what he just said? I should be the one asking what the Hell's gotten into you?"

"Did I say something strange?" Konatsu asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"You said you were going to kill Shampoo!" Mousse snarled, pushing off the wall as if to have another lunge at the smaller soldier. "I heard you!"

"I… did I?"

"You didn't," Ryu answered. He held out his hand to Mouse again to try and calm him and diffuse things. "Mousse, he was talking about what he'd eat if we were back on base. Didn't you hear Kuno talking about filet mignon?"

"I…" He hadn't, but: "Are you sure? What…?"

"Kuno and I went back and forth for like three minutes about what cut of beef is the best. I said porterhouse. He said filet mignon?" the Kumon heir tried to jog his comrade's memory. "You didn't hear any of this?"

"I…" Mousse fell back against the wall, shaking his head.

"How can that be?" Kuno asked, also poised to get up onto his feet in defense of the still dazed Konatsu. "Did you not tell us moments ago that flank cut steak is your preference?"

The scary thing - that only hit Mousse then - was that flank cut was his favorite. It was. He must've said so at some point. He must've been at least paying some attention to the conversation. Why couldn't he remember any of it? Why was it all a blank?

"You've lost it," Ryu said, shoulders slumping. "We should just toss you out the airlock now, before you hurt someone."

Mousse's eyes widened, and he tensed to move –

When he caught himself. Forcing his instincts back, he crushed his eyes shut and tried not to hear the others talk. The more he heard, the worse it became, until the sounds blurred into a horrific dissonant scream. During it all, the hidden weapons master tried to remain calm and remember his training, treating it like a psionic attack. He froze, trying desperately to clear his mind and not make an act that he'd regret.

The episode lasted all of thirty seconds…

But the curses and gibberish echoed in his head, over and over.

It was rather worse than the previously minor issue of simply not hearing people from time to time. Eventually, holding up his hands for silence, the others got the hint and kept quiet. Still, he could hear things: whispers from deeper in the ship, low enough not to be readily comprehensible, but just loud enough to be suspicious. Even with Ryu and Kuno and Konatsu completely quiet, their mouths shut, Mousse could hear whispered parroting from within the alien walls.

"I… I need to go," he said, and even his own words came out as a string of profanities. Only the fact that the others present nodded, understanding what had been said in the most basic and unmistakable fashion, gave the weapons master any confidence in what he himself had tried to say.

---

Explaining this to Nabiki and Ryouga took a literal leap of faith, Mousse's own words still sounding like incomprehensible gibberish to his own ears. It was a stroke of luck and intuition when the former, sensing his difficulty, gave him her touchpad tablet. Written words came out smoothly and honestly, and he hastened to explain it in written form.

The two talked… about horrible, unmentionable things.

Mousse closed his eyes again and concentrated on breathing exercises.

There was just… no way… he could deal with this. Not on a mission. Not so quickly. Everything that had come before, he'd dealt with. Deep down, he had been rather proud of himself for not ending up like Kuno or Konatsu he was a steady rock for India and always had been. Maybe he had even started to make light of… whatever this place did to people.

And then, in seconds, an irritant had become… debilitating.

Hiding his eyes behind his glasses, Mousse tried – seriously tried – not to think about how much worse it could or would get. Instead, his right hand clenched into a fist. He didn't even need to be told. He had asked for it after all. He was going to be taken off duty and confined.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

'D… damnit… why now?'

Using the pretense of adjusting his glasses to hide his face, Mousse fought the urge to slam his fist into the wall. Now, more than ever, he needed to exercise self control. Yet the one remaining question continued to plague him in the silence he forced himself to endure:

'…Why me?'

---

x

---

Sin'nan was another humanoid alien, tall and lithe and feminine with light violet skin and a long mane of very fine slightly darker-purple medusa-like tentacles that ran down her back and over sharply pointed ears. Her pupils were dyed green by her power ring, but they bore only a soft glow and remained large and emotive, set into oval eyes. Alone for the moment, she buzzed happily around the communal lounge on the ship, setting places on a table she had set up. Despite the glow and power of her ring, she seemed to prefer to work by hand. Her uniform reflected that minimalist mentality: it was sheer and skintight, with patches of green on the hands, feet, and shoulders only. Green marks, possibly tattoos, curved around her mouth.

The ship's sensors recorded her with disinterest as she finished, placed her hands on her hips in a very human-like gesture, and took in her handiwork. It wasn't long after that another figure entered the lounge, raising a hand in greeting.

"Done already, Sin'nan?" the newcomer asked. He was red-skinned, with delicate, chitin-like plates framing his jaw and face. In contrast to the female alien, this one's uniform sported prominent green all across his torso, plus boot-like coloration over his feet below the knee. His arms were black and his hands bare-red.

"Pretty much," the violet woman replied, and touched him gently on the forehead. "Happy Maker's Day, Commander Varto!"

"Blessed Maker's Day, Sin'nan," he replied, inclining his head slightly, displaying his own traditions regarding the apparent holiday. "The others should be along shortly."

"It must've been trying to leave the ship," she said, standing aside so he could have a seat on one of the solid-green chairs.

"The emotional spectrum in this dimension is too different from the one at home," he agreed, relaxing as he leaned back into his seat. "Thank the Guardians our new rings still work." He craned his neck to give Sin'nan a confident grin. "You'll get used to it after a few more jumps."

"Will Trespasser be joining us, too?" she asked. "Did you talk to him?"

Varto shook his head and gazed upwards at the ceiling. "No. This sort of... event isn't really his preference. You know how Guardians are with emotional displays and superstitions. Besides, he's too worked up about finding another universe without an Oa."

"Hard to believe we're the only Green Lanterns in this entire universe," Sin'nan mused. "In all the universes connected to this dimension, even!"

"Sin'nan, greetings," another figure entered the room. This one was roly-poly and almost egg shaped, with a single prominent eye. Four arms sprouted from the wide torso, two of which were raised in amiable greeting. This alien's Lantern uniform was again distinct, save for the green-on-white motif in the center. Green stripes radiated out from the sphere-shaped alien over and between arms and legs. A wide frog-like mouth split into a toothy grin.

"Happy Maker's Day, Doan!" Sin'nan turned and greeted the other Lantern, touching a finger to his forehead, just over his single eye.

"Warm Maker's Day," he answered, simply, searching for a chair. One notably on the opposite end of the room from Commander Varto.

He was followed by a pink haired female entering the room. She was generally humanoid, like Varto and Sin'nan, with dark-pink skin that contrasted with her neon-pink locks. Her uniform was a lighter shade of green, with intricate white sections curling up her hoofed feet and exposed skin sections on the upper thighs and arms. A tail stood straight, for balance, behind her - like a raptor. She clasped her fellow Lantern on the shoulders with a friendly smile.

"Triumphant Maker's Day, Sin'nan," she said, addressing the other woman first, and then the two males. "You, too, Varto. Doan."

The two acknowledged the sentiment more quietly.

"Happy Maker's Day, Lora!" Sin'nan smiled at her friend, but peeked over her shoulder, expectant.

"Voor and Romax should be along in a minute," the other woman guessed at her friend's curiosity. "Thavor's still meditating, but I knocked on his door loud enough even he had to hear me. R'rix. should be almost done regenerating, too."

"I synthesized drinks for everyone," Sin'nan explained, walking with her friend over to the table. "And, yes, Doan," she quickly assured the egg-shaped alien. "Yours is non-alcoholic. Ammonium-salt."

"Ah!" The four armed alien eyed the one sealed-glass on the table. "Really?"

"They call that fertilizer on my planet, you know?" Lora commented, patting the rotund Lantern on the head playfully.

"Your flora has good taste," Doan snickered.

Before long, the others entered as well. The first was a humanoid, male (if it followed human appearances), with a conservative black uniform; the only green being around the torso and the Lantern symbol. White gloves were stretched over four-fingered hands. His skin was the color of most of his uniform: an almost onyx-black. Behind him, a huge, muscular Lantern with bear-like features sported a uniform of banded green and white and black, like tiger stripes.

Sin'nan was quick to greet and identify the two arrivals, the former being Voor and the latter Romax. They were followed by a crystalline being that moved slowly. It had to use it's ring to communicate vocally, and even then it did so with a strange, somewhat distorted monotone. The rocklike being greeted Sin'nan with an extended ritual of crystalline growths that shifted colors. This was R'rix, and clearly the most alien of the alien Green Lanterns.

The last to arrive was a small bodied, aquatic looking alien with large eyes and a small mouth. Mottled gray skin was almost entirely covered by plan black; the uniform also sporting a curious geometrical arrangement of green diamonds that changed from front to back, like the camouflage reflex of a cuttlefish frozen in mid-adjustment. Unlike R'rix, this alien could speak, it simply seemed to prefer not to. It muttered a very quiet greeting and sat down on the second to last remaining chair.

"I know we're all busy," Sin'nan addressed her comrades and fellow Corps members, raising a glass. "But today is Maker Day, and I'm really glad we could all get together for it to have a toast."

"Here, here!" The burly Romax was already raising his glass high.

"I know even on my world, not everyone believes in Maker's Day," the violet female continued. "But I think what matters the most is spending important days like this together, with friends and family. That's what's really important, more than any actual spiritual obligation. I mean, there are so many special days on so many planets, I feel kind of guilty asking you all to come together for mine, instead of... for... well, anyway! I'm rambling." She blushed darkly and inclined her head to Varto. "Commander?"

The red-skinned Green Lantern cleared his throat and stood, to address his peers.

"Maker's Day..." he began, slowly. a few seconds passed, as he thought up what to say.

"Maker's Day," he said again. "Is a lot like my race's Beacon in the Night... it celebrates life and hope. It is that shared belief that transcends worlds. So, this Maker's Day, let's join Sin'nan and give thanks. And just not for five safe dimensional jumps in a row, and not just for the many greater cycles we've been on this mission. If anything, seeing all the other dimensions outside our multiverse, I think we should be thankful for our universe. We are thankful for our stars, which give us light, for our worlds, which gave us a chance to evolve... we are thankful for the miracle of life, in all it's many forms."

"We aren't in our universe," he concluded, looking around the room to read the faces of his comrades. "But still, we give thanks. Because it is Maker's Day here, too. Even if everything is different. We are Green Lanterns. We are defenders of the miracle of life."

"Blessed Maker's Day," Varto finished, raising his glass.

"Triumphant Maker's Day," Lora joined him.

"Happy Maker's Day!" Sin'nan cheered.

"Warm Maker's Day." Doan.

"Great Maker's Day!" Voor.

"Maker's. Day." R'rix.

"To those who came before!" Romax thundered in a booming voice, part of his own personal toast.

"To those who come after," Thavor finished, much more quietly.

The eight Green Lanterns toasted and drank and laughed, the event recorded by the ship's dutiful internal sensors. It was one of the last intact recordings before their final, fateful jump. A transit event that should have taken them home.

It didn't.